[1587] in SIPB bug reports
rt 7.1H: webster
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Tue Dec 25 01:16:30 1990
Date: Tue, 25 Dec 90 01:16:06 -0500
From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" <jik@pit-manager.MIT.EDU>
To: gptesler@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Cc: bug-sipb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
I find it ironic that you quoted in your recent bug report to "bugs"
the entire error message that the webster program prints out when it
fails to look up a word, which includes instructions to "send mail to
bug-sipb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU to let the SIPB know that the server is
broken," and then you sent your bug report to "bugs" anyway. Needless
to say, it should have been sent to bug-sipb, not to bugs.
In any case, the explanation for what you experienced is that the
webster server takes longer to look up a word when the machine it's
running on is more loading down. When you looked up the word in the
student center, the webster server was very busy, so the request timed
out. When you looked it up in m2-225, the webster server was not
busy, so your request completed before the webster client timed out.
We are working on a new webster client/server which doesn't have these
problems, but there is no anticipated completion date at this time.
In any case, as the error message you got says, if "tree" succeeds
when your word does not, then you've misspelled your word.
--> Jonathan Kamens
Project Athena Watchmaker and User Consultant
Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) member
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU
