Invisig0th wrote...
Once again, you misunderstood the post. In this specific case, the ONLY way to generate the actual error message was to do a FULL BUILD OF THE MODULE.
No, I'm quite clear on what you're saying. And naturally, the only way to get build errors to appear is to run a build. What I am telling you is something else entirely:
1) that you don't need to get those build errors to tell that a module or toolset is corrupt
2) a corrupted mod or toolset will not necessarily throw a build error, making this an uneven tool at best
3) that there are much quicker ways of determining that a module or toolset is corrupt
and lastly, that, even were 1) through 3) not the case, that:
4) justifying time spent on optimizing builds based on the notion that they can solve obscure and uncommon problems, is silly, because you'll likely spend more time optimizing than you save.
That error message led directly to the solution to the problem. Prior to that, neither Axe Murderer or myself was able to solve the problem. So this is one example of a specific situation where a full build of a module was very important.
That's all well and good - clearly, in that case, it helped you determine the nature of the problem. None of that, however, really refutes 1-4 above. Yes, it helped in that case, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't a faster way of figuring it out, or that it necessarily would've determined the problem. You can dig a hole with a spoon, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't grab a shovel.
Anyone who claims that a full build of the module is never useful is quite simply wrong.
I agree. Of course, that's not at all what I'm claiming. I'm claiming it's pretty much always a waste of time. That you could never possibly ever see ANY benefit from doing a mod build is a rediculously easy-to-disprove straw man, which your anecdote did quite handily. It misses the point.
My post was intended to share this first-hand information with the OP -- information which you were apparently not aware of. And that's exactly what I've done.
That may be, since you're right, I didn't know you could dectect a corrupt toolset in that fashion - it never occured to me to waste my time trying it. :happy: You are are also, however, advocating for the usefulness of the toolset's build option, which, as I and the other posters have noted, is wrongheaded.
Please feel free to continue to insist that this kind of thing never happens to anyone, based solely on the fact that you personally have not seen it happen.
I didn't insist that. In fact, if you bother yourself to read my post, it's happened to me a good deal more than you (you claim one other instance besides the anecdote above, while I've dealt with a dozen or so players and a handful of devs - check back and see). And, as a matter of fact, speak of the devil and he shall appear. It happened to one of my devs today. In this case, it was the module that went corrupt, in a new and wonderous way I'd not seen before. It caused the items icon palette to list merchants instead of items, with no other effects (the merchants were also listed normally under the merchants icon:
Behold!So, you may ask yourself, how did we set about diagnosing this bizarre, never-before-seen-by-us behavior? He tried loading another module. It displayed the icons normally. He loaded the old one, and they displayed incorrectly. Mystery solved. Time spent diagnosing? Under 5 minutes. He then loaded up a recent backup, replaced the script he'd been working on with a txt backup, and went on his merry way, but not before sending me a copy of the mod - I wanted to put your diagnostic method to the test.
A little over three hours later, I can now report to you, the mod turned up no build errors. In the interests of full disclosure, I DID turn off script compiling, because the feeble bioware compiler chokes on our code (too many declarations), but compiling the scripts using the prc compiler, an improved bioware compiler, yeilded no errors, unsurpisingly. So, there you have it. Time saved by NOT using the build module option to diagnose? Over three hours (it's a big mod, what can I say, only used to take 2 and a quarter, and that's with a fair chunk of resources deposited outside the mod, in resman).
I'd love to hear more details about what kind of corruption a build DOES turn up, and what kind of error it throws - you've been very vague.
Likewise, while you're sharing things I don't know, if you can come up with an example of corruption that takes less time to diagnose with the build module option than other options, by all means, I'd love to see it. I can understand how it might seem like the way to go when you haven't seen many corrupt modules/toolsets/game installs, and are confused by what the mod/game/toolset is doing, but I promise, it isn't.
The WORST case diagnostic scenario I can imagine would be doing a full reinstall to check, after having spent 10-15 minutes ruling out all other possibilities (hak order, corrupt mod, etc). I can well imagine a reinstall taking more time for some people than a mod build (not me, with a mod the size of HG), but it, unlike the mod build, is nearly certain to correct any corruption, and you're going to have to do it anyway if that is in fact the problem, so it's a flat-out winning proposition for dealing with corruption, as opposed to wasting a couple hours on a mod build. And, in most cases, you don't need to do the reinstall to figure it out anway.
In my case, I have yet to have to resort to reinstall to check for corruption, since, of the instances I've seen, simply swapping modules to check for a corrupt mod, and swapping the same mod with another builder to check for a corrupt toolset has worked (though 'swapping the same mod' is admittedly a more complex proposition for someone using different set of haks etc, and yes, I've done that too). I'll also admit I used to try leto scans first, since they're quite good at turning up corrupt gffs (and I still do for hunting corrupt bics, though I haven't had to do that for years now), but that is now more a confirming step than anything, if I even bother at all (they're somewhat time consuming, though not nearly so much as a build).
The people reading this thread will make up their own minds regarding how logical that particular line of reasoning is.
Oh, I'm certain they will.
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Funky
Modifié par FunkySwerve, 09 décembre 2010 - 05:45 .
