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Re: How long does technical support take?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg62143] Re: [mg62109] How long does technical support take?
• From: Clifford Martin <camartin at snet.net>
• Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 03:32:41 -0500 (EST)
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

John,

If you are a Premier subsciber why don't you get on
the phone and try to talk with someone in person? 
Sometimes it takes a bit but generally you get someone
who is interested in the problem, eventually. From
your posts it looks like there is a problem but it may
be (as you suggest) more widespread than just
Mathematica. Don't give up.

Regards,

Cliff Martin


--- John Sidles <sidles at u.washington.edu> wrote:

> Dear Mathgroup folks
> 
> Once a week I send a message to Technical support
> like this:
> 
>
-------------------------------------------------------------
>  > Dear Mathematica support
>  >
>  > It is now one month with no substantial help
> regarding request
>  > [TS 28968] Mathematica SingularValueDecomposition
> failure.
>  > Please send a status report soon, addressing:
>  >
>  > (a) Have you reproduced this bug?
>  > (b) Do you know a workaround at present?
>  > (c) If no workaround is known, when will one be
> available?
>  >
>  > If none of the above can be answered, please
> reply estimating
>  > when *any* substantial reply will be forthcoming.
>  This is
>  > a serious bug that is obstructing a large
> research program.
>  >
>  > Thank you for your (hoped for) customer support.
>  >
>  >     Sincerely
>  >     John Sidles, Professor
>  >     UW School of Medicine
>  >     UW Quantum System Engineering Group
>  >     ( http://www.mrfm.org )
>
-------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Within a day or two, I receive this reply, which
> never varies:
> 
>
-------------------------------------------------------------
>  > We wanted to let you know that we have received
> your email and
>  > that we're working on answering your query as
> quickly as possible.
> 
>  > For questions such as these, we often rely on the
> expertise of
>  > our development team for help. As soon as we have
> more concrete
>  > information on your request, we'll contact you
> again.
> 
>  > Thank you for your continued patience.
>
-------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> The irritative thing is, this reply is completely
> non-responsive,
> and it promises action at a vague future date that
> never seems to
> arrive.  Since it never varies, it seems originate
> from an automated
> script, and not a real person; no real person would
> be so obtuse!
> 
> I polled my colleagues at the Institute for
> Mathematical Analysis,
> and many of them have also experienced sporadic
> problems with singular
> value decomposition, not only in Mathematica, but in
> other analysis
> packages too.
> 
> What these packages have in common is, they are all
> based on LAPACK.
> What my colleagues think is, the bug may be in the
> LAPACK code itself.
> 
> We'd be very happy to help Wolfram Research track
> this bug down, but
> we hope for some reciprocal respect from Wolfram
> Research, in the form
> responsive replies to bug reports.
> 
> I regret to say that many of my colleagues have
> simply given up filing
> bug reports, for reasons that must be pretty
> obvious.  In the long run,
> this can only reduce the quality of Wolfram
> products, IMHO.
> 
>