On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 21:56 -0400, Robert Myers wrote:
> It really would be helpful if developers could make sure
> that some kind of message, even if it is just a row of dots,
> comes up from time to time.
>
The most general response to your request would appear to require
violation of the Halting Theorem. I think you could force a dot with
an interrupt, but it wouldn't really tell you anything. The program
could still be hung.
It depends on what you mean by "hung". If we're talking about "in an
unforeseen state caused by a bug" then of course the HT prevents
detecting this reliably. However in this case I think the OP means
something more ordinary, "not finished yet because there's a lot to do".
This doesn't prevent giving a meaningful progress report.
poc