Reporting Bugs, Bad Features, and Bad Documentation

Users are invited and encouraged to provide feed-back on FIT2D including comments on the on-line and paper documentation. User feed-back has already led to new features being added, and modification to old ones to make them more understandable and easier to use.

If you think that you have found a bug then please follow the following reporting procedure:

1. Check the FIT2D Reference Manual section describing the command to make sure that the observed behaviour is not as described.
2. Check the FIT2D Reference Manual ``Known Bugs'' section (Section 25.1, Page ) to see if the bug has already been identified, and whether a work around has been suggested.
3. If the bug is ``new'', note the version number of FIT2D being used.
4. Use the OPEN LOG and CLOSE LOG commands to create a log-file record of the operations (minimum) which produce the bug.
5. Send by E-mail, or other means, a description of the bug (if this is not obvious from the log-file), the version number, any terminal or file traceback information. If the bug appears to be data specific, a means of obtaining (e.g. aftp) the data file which causes the bug.

As an encouragement to follow this procedure, a free beer is offered to anyone who reports a serious unknown bug⁶⁴.

Users are also encouraged to provide feed-back on the documentation. Please report mistakes and unclear documentation. Also report prompts which give insufficient information for the user to know how to respond. (Note: Giving documentation to users and getting them to try to use it is the only way to test it properly !)

The index is a very important part of the FIT2D Reference Manual. Users are not expected to read more than small sections of the manual. The index should be able to guide users to relevant sections of the manual and show how the commands may be used to perform particular operations. It you find that a useful index item is missing, for an operation which can be performed please inform me.