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Re: Anti-FUD: SVN ate my repository

From: Hamilton Link <helink_at_sandia.gov>
Date: 2004-09-21 19:39:51 CEST

I wouldn't use the word 'wedged' at all. It's computer jargon, and it's
not a precise word by any stretch of the imagination. Personally when I
say a machine is wedged it means either the server OR the operating
system OR some piece of my code on that box has seized up and is
unresponsive, and the machine needs to be rebooted OR some bit of
software needs to be restarted, and I haven't bothered to find out
which yet.

FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt -- how are you going to
combat that by saying "Oh, don't worry, it's just wedged... I can't say
and you don't want to know what the problem is exactly, but running
this-and-that tool almost always fixes it." If a "wedged" repo is in
fact a repo with damaged data structures, use damaged. If it is a repo
that was interrupted in the course of a transaction and was left
locked, say locked. Otherwise find some other suitably precise and
descriptive word and tell me how to verify the DB state and why the
tool in question fixes the problem.

I'd guess the reason Sleepycat doesn't use wedged to describe any
database condition is because they understand the various states it can
get into -- they're knowledgeable, and naturally immune to FUD. Isn't
that the state the anti-fud doc is meant to engender in the reader?

h

> We didn't coin "wedged" and we don't use it to describe any condition
> of DB.  :)  There are times when recovery (or even catastrophic
> recovery) must be run against a database (DB_RUN_RECOVERY), but that's
> not "wedged".
>
> -greg

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Received on Tue Sep 21 19:37:17 2004

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