More Fun Debugging Other Groups’ Code

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Today I spent several hours trying to figure out why loading a collection of windows was exhibiting different behavior than loading the windows individually. Basically, I use a visualization system that was written and maintained by another company (a vendor) and it's pretty decent - and terribly complex. There is a way to load a window with multiple views, and a way to load a collection of windows.

Unfortunately, the collection of windows wasn't loading properly. I'd get the first window up just fine, and then the second window would appear to start loading but then all the views from the second window would get sent to the first window. Very odd.

Reverse the loading order and things are reversed. Everything seems to want to go into one window - regardless of which one that is - save it's the first one loaded.

So I wrote an email and sent the window definitions to the vendor's support contacts. I'm not sure what's going to come of it, but it's a bug, and recently introduced, as this used to work. We'll see what they come back with.