  1.3.  Reporting Bugs

  Most software has bugs, and GENESIS is no exception.  If you believe
  you have found a bug, please follow the procedure outlined below.
  Doing so will vastly increase the speed with which the bug gets fixed.

  1. Simplify the simulation with the bug to the simplest possible
     simulation that still contains the bug.  Doing so very often shows
     that the bug is simply a script error that can be fixed by the
     user.  If not, send the simplified simulation along with a complete
     description of the bug and any other pertinent information to
     "genesis@genesis-sim.org".  It is much easier to debug a simple
     simulation than a large one with lots of irrelevant detail.  Thus,
     even though you may be tempted to send us your entire
     1,000,000-cell hippocampal network simulation which includes thirty
     different cell types and is self-aware, if you do we will probably
     never get around to fixing the bug.  If you can do this and also
     run genesis using a debugger like gdb, then that's even better;
     however, if you're that advanced you probably don't need our help
     :-)

  2. Be courteous.  Telling us to ``fix this bug or else!'' will not
     produce nearly as quick results as a polite request.  Neither will
     "fix this bug right now; I'm using genesis for an assignment which
     is due in a week" (yes, this has happened!).  Most of the GENESIS
     team does not get paid for their work; we do this as a service to
     the community.  We have deadlines just like you do.  However, it is
     not impolite to remind us of the bug if we haven't done anything
     after a reasonable amount of time (say a couple of weeks/months) or
     if we don't respond to your email quickly.

  3. If you experience any trouble compiling GENESIS, or encounter
     segmentation violations (core dumps) when running GENESIS, please
     visit the Bug-fixes directory on the GENESIS web site before
     reporting problems.  The "README" and "compiling.problems"
     files describe recent bug fixes for GENESIS and give suggestions
     for dealing with commonly encountered compilation problems.
