* GDB Woes Continued... @ 1998-01-31 0:00 wanker 1998-01-31 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Stephen Leake 0 siblings, 2 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: wanker @ 1998-01-31 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Hello everyone, I'm running the latest version of GDB for WinNT on Win95 (I was told it should work with the latest GNAT WinNT distribution), and I just want to check on a few things: 1) Does GDB decide to spontaneously abort half the time you load an executable? 2) Does GDB bring your entire system down to its knees when you try to quit? 3) Is the online help broken? When you click on anything, does it whine about not finding stdout or some Unix-ish nonsense? 4) Does GDB expect you to debug in C, even though you just wrote your code in Ada? I'm asking these questions because GDB is giving me all these problems and more (no native look and feel, ad nauseum). RTFM? Sure, once I find the FM! With the online help being broken and nothing remotely resembling documentation to be found, I can't find any information on this at all. I'm sorry if you are sick of hearing from me, but there is no where else to turn. Nothing works, and the documentation (when it is to be found) is 100% useless or worse (misleading). The only thing now keeping me from reverting to C/C++ (at least I know their distributions work), is the fact that there are people here who claim to actually have this stuff working, so I still have some glimmer of hope. Thanks, and my email address is buggered so please post answers here. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-01-31 0:00 GDB Woes Continued wanker @ 1998-01-31 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Roger Racine ` (2 more replies) 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 3 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Jerry van Dijk @ 1998-01-31 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > I'm running the latest version of GDB for WinNT on Win95 > (I was told it should work with the latest GNAT WinNT distribution), > and I just want to check on a few things: > 1) Does GDB decide to spontaneously abort half the time you > load an executable? It does with me on Win95. > 2) Does GDB bring your entire system down to its knees when you > try to quit? Note entirely, you can break it of using the tasklist. But this is indeed another problem. > 3) Is the online help broken? When you click on anything, does > it whine about not finding stdout or some Unix-ish nonsense? Never tried it. > 4) Does GDB expect you to debug in C, even though you just > wrote your code in Ada? No. It seems that with certain configurations (although I cannot tell which ones) gdb for 3.10p1 will not work under Win95. Can anyone outside ACT report success with gdb under Win95 ? -- -- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland -- Team Ada | email: jdijk@acm.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-01-31 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk @ 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Roger Racine 1998-02-02 0:00 ` wanker 1998-02-02 0:00 ` GDB Woes Continued Martin C. Carlisle 1998-02-03 0:00 ` vonhend 2 siblings, 1 reply; 22+ messages in thread From: Roger Racine @ 1998-02-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > > I'm running the latest version of GDB for WinNT on Win95 > > (I was told it should work with the latest GNAT WinNT distribution), > > and I just want to check on a few things: > > > 1) Does GDB decide to spontaneously abort half the time you > > load an executable? > > It does with me on Win95. I have not been able to get it to load an executable. I get a "Something wrong with xxxxx" message, where "xxxxx" is the file name. > > > 2) Does GDB bring your entire system down to its knees when you > > try to quit? > > Note entirely, you can break it of using the tasklist. But this is indeed > another problem. > > > 3) Is the online help broken? When you click on anything, does > > it whine about not finding stdout or some Unix-ish nonsense? > > Never tried it. I get the same problem. > > > 4) Does GDB expect you to debug in C, even though you just > > wrote your code in Ada? > > No. Does it have anything to do with how one compiles the program in question? I am using GIDE, with the switch set that creates debugger information. And I have still not been able to get the debugger to work. > > It seems that with certain configurations (although I cannot tell which > ones) > gdb for 3.10p1 will not work under Win95. > > Can anyone outside ACT report success with gdb under Win95 ? > Not I. The only reason I respond like this is that I, too, am a bit frustrated by the level of documentation (especially when the Help system does not work!). I have seen a message from Robert Dewar where he suggests that the debugger is unnecessary, and I understand his position. I do not think the point is relevant, though, since a -lot- of people will be turned off a language if the tools for that language do not meet their expectations, no matter if the expectation is reasonable. It would be better to not have a tool than to have a bad one (or an undocumented one, where the tool looks bad even if it can be made to work). By the way, do not interpret this (or the original poster's message) as a swipe at ACT, or Robert Dewar. I applaud their effort to bring an affordable, excellent product to the masses. And I have found the -compiler- to be reasonably well documented (it is too UNIX-oriented for Windows users, but that is a different subject), and the compilation system works quite well. Please consider this as "constructive criticism" to the Ada community in general. If we want to get Ada accepted by the masses, we need to A) provide tools the masses want (as opposed to what they need), and B) provide usable tools (as opposed to useful tools). That is a bit cynical, but the point is that any tools that do not work "Off the Shelf" are not going to be used. Roger Racine ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Roger Racine @ 1998-02-02 0:00 ` wanker 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 2 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: wanker @ 1998-02-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <rracine-0202980727040001@rjr1287.draper.com>, Roger Racine <rracine@draper.com> wrote: [About loading an executable] >I have not been able to get it to load an executable. I get a "Something >wrong with xxxxx" message, where "xxxxx" is the file name. > Are you by any chance loading from the menu? Whenever I try any kind of load from the menu I get some kind of error messages. Try some of the commands from the debugger command-line. A "help" should give you a list of things to try. Not that it's going to do you any good. You won't see the error message, but you'll still see C code, and I haven't had much luck in actually stepping through anything. >> > 4) Does GDB expect you to debug in C, even though you just >> > wrote your code in Ada? >> >> No. > >Does it have anything to do with how one compiles the program in >question? I am using GIDE, with the switch set that creates debugger >information. And I have still not been able to get the debugger to work. I used the -g option which as far as I know, should create debugging information. I got this straight out of seeing what Adagide fed to the compiler. I still can't get anything other than C code, and the debugger doesn't even seem to like stepping through that! >> Can anyone outside ACT report success with gdb under Win95 ? >> >Not I. And of course not I. > >The only reason I respond like this is that I, too, am a bit frustrated by >the level of documentation (especially when the Help system does not >work!). Definitely. What really irks me is the fact that the bugs and flakiness would NEVER have made it through if someone had bothered to test the thing. There is no way that you get a completely, 100% broken help system and 50% (or higher) crash rate coming through the test. The way I see it, somebody pulled out the Unix source, threw it at some automatic conversion protocols and figured "that's good enough for those windows bastards, if they don't like it, let them get Linux!". Well I'm one of those "windows bastards", and I have no intention of installing Linux. If the tools for windows don't work, then I will find other tools. Ada is too good a language to give a bad rep to because the tools stink. How many people do you think are being turned off because of crap like gdb? Sorry, but gdb IS crap. At least the Windows version is. Successful Advocacy starts with having good tools to show people how nice Ada programming is. Please remember that. You've got a superb IDE (Grasp), which can connect to a very good compiler (GNAT), now you need a usable debugger. > >I have seen a message from Robert Dewar where he suggests that the >debugger is unnecessary, and I understand his position. I do not think >the point is relevant, though, since a -lot- of people will be turned off >a language if the tools for that language do not meet their expectations, >no matter if the expectation is reasonable. It would be better to not >have a tool than to have a bad one (or an undocumented one, where the tool >looks bad even if it can be made to work). I haven't seen this message, and I am interested in knowing why would a debugger be unnecessary? I consider the debugger to be THE most important tool next to the compiler itself. >By the way, do not interpret this (or the original poster's message) as a >swipe at ACT, or Robert Dewar. I applaud their effort to bring an >affordable, excellent product to the masses. And I have found the >-compiler- to be reasonably well documented (it is too UNIX-oriented for >Windows users, but that is a different subject), and the compilation >system works quite well. I'm not insulting ACT either -- I mean this stuff IS free. Now if I were expected to pay for gdb, that would be an entirely different matter (I would be raising all hell). And as you said, the compiler is quite good. I consider the problem with gdb to be representative of problems with people porting Unix programs to Windows (NT, 95) in general. I mean look at Cygwin32 -- it's a package designed to make windows act like Unix so that people don't have to take the time to actually fix their programs so they work on Windows. It's like a layer of emulation on top of an O/S. Cygwin32 is the ultimate "round peg in a square hole" adapter. It's like these tools were designed by Linux advocates so they can say "it won't be THIS hard if you just give up and use Linux". I think the ultimate example of this ridiculousness came when I went out to download a language. The language itself (the binary for Windows) was about a meg or two in size, but in order to run I had to download a 9 meg package to make Windows look like Unix! I think that says it all. Needless to say, I didn't even bother downloading the language. The only reason I'm putting up with this debacle so far is because I've used Ada before and I know it's a good language. If I didn't know this, I would have given up the first time I had a problem. To all the folks thinking about porting Unix apps to Windows: Please REALLY PORT IT. Don't expect us to break our backs to get YOUR programs to work with Windows. That's your job, and remember that things should work right out of the package. This is not Unix, where you are stuck compiling and configuring things yourself. Do you think Windows users, who are pampered with things like "install wizards" and point and click configuration are going to try to fix makefiles and set up environments manually, especially in the absence of decent documentation? > >Please consider this as "constructive criticism" to the Ada community in >general. If we want to get Ada accepted by the masses, we need to A) >provide tools the masses want (as opposed to what they need), and B) >provide usable tools (as opposed to useful tools). That is a bit cynical, >but the point is that any tools that do not work "Off the Shelf" are not >going to be used. Precisely. At this point I'm on the fence as to whether or not Ada is even worth my time. I used Ada a few years back, and deleted it from my system because there wasn't a useful debugger available. Without being able to debug my code, I considered the entire development environment to be nothing more than a toy. I sadly went back to coding in C/C++ and with even higher level languages (ones that had a subsystem that served as a debugger). Now I'm back, and it sadly looks like Ada95 will be deleted again. Not only doesn't gdb work, but the TK package doesn't either -- it won't even build (the fact that I'm even expected to build the package under Win95 is demonstrative of what I've been complaining about -- more unnecessary UNIXisms). The really sad thing is I'm not sure if I want to waste my time giving Ada another chance. Life is too short to be trying to fix problems which should not be there. It's like all the time and grief you'll save by programming in Ada is more than offset by the agony you'll suffer trying to get the thing to work! > >Roger Racine I'm sure you can tell that I'm frustrated. I've just about had it. Thanks. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-02 0:00 ` wanker @ 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1 sibling, 1 reply; 22+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) <<Definitely. What really irks me is the fact that the bugs and flakiness would NEVER have made it through if someone had bothered to test the thing. There is no way that you get a completely, 100% broken help system and 50% (or higher) crash rate coming through the test. The way I see it, somebody pulled out the Unix source, threw it at some automatic conversion protocols and figured "that's good enough for those windows bastards, if they don't like it, let them get Linux!". >> Actually, as many of you know, we delayed the release of the NT debugger publicly even though it seemed to work fairly well on NT until we got a version that would work reasonably well on Win95. It works well on at least some Win95 systems, all except for the restart capability, which is documented to be broken (and is not easy to fix). We also heard from our beta testers that it was working. It sure is odd to hear of reports of it being totally broken on Win95. We have a couple of customers on Win95 who are using it without anything like these troubles. We are certainly finding that Win95 is not as compatible with NT as certain folks would like us to think :-) Contrary to the scenario above, a LOT of work has gone into the NT version of the debugger to get around the Win95 problems. One thing this confirms incidentally is that the general ACT strategy of not releasing things publicly until they have been really well shaken down is a good one. In the case of the Win95 debugger, people were screaming at us for a long time for not releasing a public version, and we very conciously decided to release this as soon as we had at least some reports of it working fine under Win95, and (for example) it certainly works OK on my Win95 setup. It certainly seems like milage varies on different versions of Win95, and it is hard to know exactly what the sources of the variation might be. As always, if you have very specific examples of failures, send the reports along to report@gnat.com. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 22+ messages in thread From: Ronald Cole @ 1998-02-03 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: > We also heard from our beta testers that it was working. Sounds like a fundamental problem in your beta testing program. > One thing this confirms incidentally is that the general ACT strategy of > not releasing things publicly until they have been really well shaken > down is a good one. The only thing it confirms is your religious adherance to the cathedral model of software development. You have yet to attempt the bazaar model (so far as anyone can tell). <http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html> -- Forte International, P.O. Box 1412, Ridgecrest, CA 93556-1412 Ronald Cole <ronald@ridgecrest.ca.us> Phone: (760) 499-9142 President, CEO Fax: (760) 499-9152 My PGP fingerprint: E9 A8 E3 68 61 88 EF 43 56 2B CE 3E E9 8F 3F 2B ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Ronald Cole @ 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-03 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Ronald Cole says <<Sounds like a fundamental problem in your beta testing program.>> Not really ... we certainly could take the attitude of not publicly releasing the NT version of GDB until we were really sure it worked on *all* Win95 systems (there is a simple method of ensuring that we meet this requirement :-) :-) In fact the current version seems quite reliable on NT, and also seems to work on many (most?) Win95 systems (note for example Martin Carlisle's reported success at Air Force academy with a variety of machines and users). It is at this stage hard to know if the reported problems are oddities in particular versions of Win95, or installation/configuration problems (we always have the experience that many problems come from not reading all the documentation and installation instructions -- no way of knowing that this is the case here, but also no way of knowing that it is NOT the case). Our strategy for this release was to release it as soon as we heard from some significant users (including Martin) that the fundamental Win95 problem had been solved. Anway, you should consider that the status of the public release of GDB for GNAT/NT is that it works OK on NT, and may well work on Win95, but there are no guarantees (actually there are never any guarantees in using the public versions of GNAT technology in any case!) We haven't been able to duplicate these problems so far, and we have run GDB on a variety of Win95 machines. One observation is that we are running the latest version of Win95 on pretty much all machines, not the broken version you can buy in stores, so perhaps that is one variable. Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Andrew Lynch 2 siblings, 1 reply; 22+ messages in thread From: Roger Racine @ 1998-02-04 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) > <<Sounds like a fundamental problem in your beta testing program.>> > > Not really ... we certainly could take the attitude of not publicly > releasing the NT version of GDB until we were really sure it worked > on *all* Win95 systems (there is a simple method of ensuring that > we meet this requirement :-) :-) > > In fact the current version seems quite reliable on NT, and also seems > to work on many (most?) Win95 systems (note for example Martin Carlisle's > reported success at Air Force academy with a variety of machines and > users). It is at this stage hard to know if the reported problems are > oddities in particular versions of Win95, or installation/configuration > problems (we always have the experience that many problems come from not > reading all the documentation and installation instructions -- no way of > knowing that this is the case here, but also no way of knowing that it is > NOT the case). > > Our strategy for this release was to release it as soon as we heard from > some significant users (including Martin) that the fundamental Win95 > problem had been solved. > > Anway, you should consider that the status of the public release of > GDB for GNAT/NT is that it works OK on NT, and may well work on Win95, > but there are no guarantees (actually there are never any guarantees > in using the public versions of GNAT technology in any case!) > > We haven't been able to duplicate these problems so far, and > we have run GDB on a variety of Win95 machines. One observation is > that we are running the latest version of Win95 on pretty much all > machines, not the broken version you can buy in stores, so perhaps > that is one variable. This is my first experience trying to use a compilation system on a Windows 95 PC (I have used Ada on pretty much every other OS), so I have no idea if these types of problems are usual with other commercial compiler products (I picked my words carefully. GNAT and GDB are commercial products, right? One happens to pay for the support instead of the license, but that is, supposedly, the only difference). Perhaps ACT (and every other vendor; this advice is universal; the actual suggestions are specific) should make sure that their testing is realistic. 1) Most people do not have access to the beta versions of commercial OSes. They have the "broken version you can buy in stores". And those computers have -lots- of other programs installed. Do you have any idea on what configurations of Windows platforms your testers are testing? Are they all using some pre-release version, or a "clean" machine used only for Ada development? 2) If you care about the unsupported folks out here (which it seems you do, or you would not be responding) have relative novices (with the platform and the download procedure) go through the installation process and the documentation available on the server. Many people are going to simply download the .EXE files and install. That is what they are used to for commercial products, shareware and freeware. Do not suggest that they build the product from source code. They have better things to do with their time (and disk space). 3) Do not assume that the users of your unsupported version are not important to your economic success. Some are evaluating the language, the product, or the company. If they find a robust product, at least as good as what they are used to, the language will get more converts, and you will get more supported customers. Lots of winners! Roger Racine ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine @ 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine 0 siblings, 1 reply; 22+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-04 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Roger said <<1) Most people do not have access to the beta versions of commercial OSes. They have the "broken version you can buy in stores". And those computers have -lots- of other programs installed.>> No, that's quite wrong, most people have the OSR2 version of Win95, because that's what comes preinstalled. Remember that Microsoft's proposal to allow the old (store available) version to be installed by OEM's as a solution to getting rid of explorer was widely regarded as a completely unreasonable response to the government suit. So unless you are in the very small minority (at this stage) who is running the original version of WIn95, you are probably already running OSR2. <<Do you have any idea on what configurations of Windows platforms your testers are testing? Are they all using some pre-release version, or a "clean" machine used only for Ada development?>> No one is using pre-releases of any kind, we are using the current version of Win95, as distributed by Microsoft preinstalled on OEM machines. Yes, it is a pity you can't buy this in a store, but complain to MS about this, not to us! <<2) If you care about the unsupported folks out here (which it seems you do, or you would not be responding) have relative novices (with the platform and the download procedure) go through the installation process and the documentation available on the server. Many people are going to simply download the .EXE files and install. That is what they are used to for commercial products, shareware and freeware. Do not suggest that they build the product from source code. They have better things to do with their time (and disk space).>> No one is for a moment suggesting to anyone that they build the NT version from sources. You never saw me or anyone else suggest this. In fact this build is quite tricky, and we advise trying it only if you know what you are doing! <<3) Do not assume that the users of your unsupported version are not important to your economic success. Some are evaluating the language, the product, or the company. If they find a robust product, at least as good as what they are used to, the language will get more converts, and you will get more supported customers. Lots of winners!>> Actually we do NOT encourage people to use the public version for evaluation. If you want to evaluate GNAT, you should contact our sales department regarding evaluation licenses. For any proprietary product, this is the procedure you would normally follow anyway, and it is still the best approach for GNAT. We make the public version available for students and other casual users, and it is useful in that mode for spreading the use of the language, but the public version of GNAT most definitely is NOT intended for serious evaluation purposes. For one thing, one of the most important aspects of the use of the GNAT technology is the support that we can provide, and if you are doing a serious evaluation of GNAT, you should also evaluate that support! Finally, as I noted before, we do NOT encourage the use of Win95 for serious software development. We attempt to make sure that the NT version works on Win95, since for student use particularly this is valuable, but it is clear that WIn95 is not suitable for software development where any Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 1 reply; 22+ messages in thread From: Roger Racine @ 1998-02-04 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <dewar.886601304@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote: > <<1) Most people do not have access to the beta versions of commercial > OSes. They have the "broken version you can buy in stores". And those > computers have -lots- of other programs installed.>> > > No, that's quite wrong, most people have the OSR2 version of Win95, because > that's what comes preinstalled. Remember that Microsoft's proposal to allow > the old (store available) version to be installed by OEM's as a solution to > getting rid of explorer was widely regarded as a completely unreasonable > response to the government suit. > > So unless you are in the very small minority (at this stage) who is running > the original version of WIn95, you are probably already running OSR2. > Actually, I have an upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, and I did buy it in a store. I have no idea what percentage of people get new machines vs upgrading old ones. But new operating system versions do not come with processor boards. > <<Do you have any idea on what configurations of Windows platforms your > testers are testing? Are they all using some pre-release version, or a > "clean" machine used only for Ada development?>> > > No one is using pre-releases of any kind, we are using the current version > of Win95, as distributed by Microsoft preinstalled on OEM machines. Yes, it > is a pity you can't buy this in a store, but complain to MS about this, not > to us! > I misunderstood your earlier statement (and did not know about Microsoft's policy). However, your release notes, perhaps, should mention the version on which it was tested. > <<2) If you care about the unsupported folks out here (which it seems you > do, or you would not be responding) have relative novices (with the > platform and the download procedure) go through the installation process > and the documentation available on the server. Many people are going to > simply download the .EXE files and install. That is what they are used to > for commercial products, shareware and freeware. Do not suggest that they > build the product from source code. They have better things to do with > their time (and disk space).>> > > No one is for a moment suggesting to anyone that they build the NT version > from sources. You never saw me or anyone else suggest this. In fact this > build is quite tricky, and we advise trying it only if you know what you > are doing! > This was an impression I got from you when you said you did not know how the installation was done. It is very difficult to make a user mistake with an installation procedure that asks no questions (it might want a few questions answered, but they are trivial). I have also seen in other messages (not necessarily from you or anyone from ACT) suggestions that people should build their own. > <<3) Do not assume that the users of your unsupported version are not > important to your economic success. Some are evaluating the language, the > product, or the company. If they find a robust product, at least as good > as what they are used to, the language will get more converts, and you > will get more supported customers. Lots of winners!>> > > Actually we do NOT encourage people to use the public version for evaluation. > If you want to evaluate GNAT, you should contact our sales department > regarding evaluation licenses. For any proprietary product, this is the > procedure you would normally follow anyway, and it is still the best > approach for GNAT. > > We make the public version available for students and other casual users, > and it is useful in that mode for spreading the use of the language, but > the public version of GNAT most definitely is NOT intended for serious > evaluation purposes. For one thing, one of the most important aspects of > the use of the GNAT technology is the support that we can provide, and > if you are doing a serious evaluation of GNAT, you should also evaluate > that support! > > Finally, as I noted before, we do NOT encourage the use of Win95 for > serious software development. We attempt to make sure that the NT version > works on Win95, since for student use particularly this is valuable, but > it is clear that WIn95 is not suitable for software development where any Did you intend to send more? Not that more is needed, but your message ended. Again, subject to misinterpretation (we need a more formal language than English), I take it that you consider the Win95 version to -not- be important. I do not really care about the platform. I only care if the language is hurt by the perception that the tool is bad (even if it is the platform). Ada83 (the language) got devastating reports from evaluators who really only had complaints with the compilers. If more vendors were like DEC, and only released rock-solid compilers and related tools, the language might be in a very different position today. History has a habit of repeating itself if its lessons are not learned. Roger Racine ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine @ 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 0 siblings, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-04 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Roger said Actually, I have an upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, and I did buy it in a store. I have no idea what percentage of people get new machines vs upgrading old ones. But new operating system versions do not come with processor boards. That means you are using the old obsolete version of Win95 (the one that for example does not support FAT32). If you work at picking up fixes and addons, you can deal with some, but not all, of the differences between this old release and the current one. Did you intend to send more? Not that more is needed, but your message ended. Again, subject to misinterpretation (we need a more formal language than English), I take it that you consider the Win95 version to -not- be important. We think that the Win95 version is definitely useful for and important for educational use, and that is why we make it available. As you will note from Martin Carlisle's post, the folks at the Air Force Academy agree, and have chosen GNAT+GDB as their Ada 95 platform of choice, using the nice IDE (AdaGIDE) that Martin deveoped. Many other schools and students are using the Win95 version of GNAT successfully. You seem to assume that since it does not work for you, it does not work for anyone. That would be as misleading as the assumption that because something worked for you, it worked for everyone else just as well! Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine @ 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-05 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 1998-02-09 0:00 ` Martin C. Carlisle 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Andrew Lynch 2 siblings, 2 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Jerry van Dijk @ 1998-02-04 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> schreef in artikel <dewar.886561299@merv>... > We haven't been able to duplicate these problems so far, and > we have run GDB on a variety of Win95 machines. One observation is > that we are running the latest version of Win95 on pretty much all > machines, not the broken version you can buy in stores, so perhaps > that is one variable. This is the real cause of the current misery: without a reproduction scenario there is no way to find/fix the problem. BTW I've tried both a real 'vintage 95' Win95, and the new OSR2 that came with my new laptop last month. Gdb fails identically on both systems. Yet at the same time Martin tells us he does not see this problem in his class. Perhaps the answer is to wait for Win98... :-) -- -- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland -- Team Ada | email: jdijk@acm.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk @ 1998-02-05 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 1998-02-09 0:00 ` Martin C. Carlisle 1 sibling, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 1998-02-05 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <01bd31b4$3dac0580$6d2c5c8b@aptiva>, "Jerry van Dijk" <jvandyk@ibm.net> writes: > BTW I've tried both a real 'vintage 95' Win95, and the new OSR2 > that came with my new laptop last month. Gdb fails identically > on both systems. Yet at the same time Martin tells us he does > not see this problem in his class. > > Perhaps the answer is to wait for Win98... :-) Perhaps the answer is to switch to OS/2 (to name an operating system that runs on the same hardware). Many people who have trouble with an automobile will switch their next purchase to an entirely different manufacturer, being unsatisfied with the idea of switching to a different brand from the same builder. Larry Kilgallen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-05 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 1998-02-09 0:00 ` Martin C. Carlisle 1 sibling, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Martin C. Carlisle @ 1998-02-09 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <01bd31b4$3dac0580$6d2c5c8b@aptiva>, Jerry van Dijk <jvandyk@ibm.net> wrote: >BTW I've tried both a real 'vintage 95' Win95, and the new OSR2 >that came with my new laptop last month. Gdb fails identically >on both systems. Yet at the same time Martin tells us he does >not see this problem in his class. The interested soul should note I am running Win 95 4.00.950 B --Martin -- Martin C. Carlisle, Computer Science, US Air Force Academy mcc@cs.usafa.af.mil, http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfcs/bios/carlisle.html DISCLAIMER: This content in no way reflects the opinions, standard or policy of the US Air Force Academy or the United States Government. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk @ 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Andrew Lynch 2 siblings, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Andrew Lynch @ 1998-02-04 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar wrote: > > We haven't been able to duplicate these problems so far, and > we have run GDB on a variety of Win95 machines. One observation is > that we are running the latest version of Win95 on pretty much all > machines, not the broken version you can buy in stores, so perhaps > that is one variable. The problem is that it is so easy to break any version of Win95, simply by installing and deinstalling software. Do you know which application placed which version of which DLL in your Windows directory..? This gets even worse with the international versions. Say my German version of Win95 has FOO.DLL version 2 in German. What do I do if an installation wants to replace that with FOO.DLL version 1 English? (At least it is kind enough to ask) Something is bound to go wrong somewhere, whichever choice I make. If you want your application to run on all Win95 machines I guess you might just install any system files your application needs in the required versions and bugger whatever was in there before... (at least *your* application is going to work) This seems to be the approach taken by some vendors. Andrew. P.S. As for GDB: works fine on NT at work, but not on 95 at home ("original" September 95 German Win95 with every other DLL screwed by some installed application) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-02 0:00 ` wanker 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 1998-02-04 0:00 ` John English 1 sibling, 2 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) <<<<I haven't seen this message, and I am interested in knowing why would a debugger be unnecessary? I consider the debugger to be THE most important tool next to the compiler itself.>> >> Clearly a lot of people depend on debuggers, so most certainly a good working debugger is an absolute necessity for a usable compiler system, since clearly customer demand is what establishes such needs. However, to explain my comment above. I continue to think that most people greatly overuse debuggers. It is much better to write error-free code in the first place, and if you do have errors, to think about what is wrong, and fix it, rather than spending ages in a debugger looking arond. Of course different people have different styles, but too many programmers today are introduced only to the hack-and-debug school of coding. It is interesting to present the clean-room model to typical programmers today (this is the approach in which developers are not permitted to run their code at all to test it, let alone to debug it -- the idea is to have the developers develop solid correct code, and then let a separate team do the testing). Many programmers cannot imagine writing code without testing it themselves. They are so used to the approximate-and-hack-into-shape approach. Of course there are always exceptions, where subtle interactions are best tracked down with a debugger, and a working debugger is especially important in such cases, but never forget, it is your *brain* that is the most important tool, not the compiler or the debugger :-) Going back to the use of GDB and Win95, one suggestion you might want to pursue is using NT instead of Win95. Win95 may be fine for word processing and playing games, but it seems far too unstable to be appropriate as a serious program development platform. We have certainly found NT to be much more reliable than Win95, and most of our customers using the NT/WIn95 version of GNAT are indeed using NT. GDB itself has always been more stable under NT (the delay in releasing it was solely because of the Win95 problems, since we realize that users of the public version are more likely NOT to be serious developers and to be fiddling with Win95). Still we do have some customers using WIn95, and they are certainly managing to get GDB up and running reasonably well. It is true that this is the 3.11 technology, which has a LOT of very substantial improvements in GDB and the debugging information available in Ada mode. Still, I don't think the reported problems here are to do with 3.10 vs 3.11, they seem more fundamental. If they are not installation problems, then it seems like there are some versions of Win95 that simply don't let you get past first base in loading GDB, very odd! Robert Dewar Ada Core Technologies ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar @ 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 1998-02-04 0:00 ` John English 1 sibling, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Larry Kilgallen @ 1998-02-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <dewar.886438670@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: > Of course different people have different styles, but too many programmers > today are introduced only to the hack-and-debug school of coding. It is > interesting to present the clean-room model to typical programmers today > (this is the approach in which developers are not permitted to run their > code at all to test it, let alone to debug it -- the idea is to have > the developers develop solid correct code, and then let a separate team > do the testing). Without going that far, I have recently had the opportunity to write 25K (not counting comments) lines of Ada which cannot be debugged yet because the piece into which it plugs is not yet available. I am _very_ glad to be using Ada in this circumstance and able to make progress using only a compiler. > Of course there are always exceptions, where subtle interactions are best > tracked down with a debugger, Of particular significance in this area are the points where there is an interface to code from others for which you do not have the source (such as an operating system). Ada programmers suffer in this area particularly since such interfaces were usually not designed with Ada support as a top priority and likewise for documentation. The best answer even people on this list seem to have for Microsoft situations is "you better know C". Larry Kilgallen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen @ 1998-02-04 0:00 ` John English 1998-02-04 0:00 ` nA edisA Nick Roberts 1 sibling, 1 reply; 22+ messages in thread From: John English @ 1998-02-04 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Robert Dewar (dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu) wrote: : We are certainly finding that Win95 is not as compatible with NT as : certain folks would like us to think :-) Amen! : Of course different people have different styles, but too many programmers : today are introduced only to the hack-and-debug school of coding. It is : interesting to present the clean-room model to typical programmers today : (this is the approach in which developers are not permitted to run their : code at all to test it, let alone to debug it -- the idea is to have : the developers develop solid correct code, and then let a separate team : do the testing). : Many programmers cannot imagine writing code without testing it themselves. : They are so used to the approximate-and-hack-into-shape approach. Amen, amen! [Apologies for a "me too", but so few people seem to appreciate that you still write software if you haven't got a keyboard (or worse, a mouse) within easy reach. Bring back twice-a-day punched card batch systems!] Oh reggub, I'm showing my age again... :-) ----------------------------------------------------------------- John English | mailto:je@brighton.ac.uk Senior Lecturer | http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je Dept. of Computing | ** NON-PROFIT CD FOR CS STUDENTS ** University of Brighton | -- see http://burks.bton.ac.uk ----------------------------------------------------------------- ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* nA edisA 1998-02-04 0:00 ` John English @ 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Nick Roberts 0 siblings, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Nick Roberts @ 1998-02-04 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Reminiscent of the mythical setting for Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood": Llareggub. Try reversing it! -- == Nick Roberts ================================================ == Croydon, UK =========================== == ================ == Proprietor, ThoughtWing Software ========== == Independent Software Development Consultant ====== == Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com ==== == Voicemail & Fax +44 181-405 1124 === == == == I live not in myself, but I become == === Portion of that around me; and to me == ==== High mountains are a feeling, but the hum == ======= Of human cities torture. =========== -- Byron [Childe Harold] John English <je@bton.ac.uk> wrote in article <6b8b6m$8hb@saturn.brighton.ac.uk>... [...] > Oh reggub, I'm showing my age again... :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-01-31 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Roger Racine @ 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Martin C. Carlisle 1998-02-03 0:00 ` vonhend 2 siblings, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Martin C. Carlisle @ 1998-02-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In article <01bd2e9b$76253380$562c5c8b@aptiva>, Jerry van Dijk <jvandyk@ibm.net> wrote: >It seems that with certain configurations (although I cannot tell which >ones) >gdb for 3.10p1 will not work under Win95. > >Can anyone outside ACT report success with gdb under Win95 ? Here at the Air Force Academy, we have a large number of students and faculty in Computer Science and Astro using gdb under Win 95. The only major problem is that attempting "run" or "start" a second time without closing and reopening GDB can cause the system to become unstable. --Martin -- Martin C. Carlisle, Computer Science, US Air Force Academy mcc@cs.usafa.af.mil, http://www.usafa.af.mil/dfcs/bios/carlisle.html DISCLAIMER: This content in no way reflects the opinions, standard or policy of the US Air Force Academy or the United States Government. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-01-31 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Roger Racine 1998-02-02 0:00 ` GDB Woes Continued Martin C. Carlisle @ 1998-02-03 0:00 ` vonhend 2 siblings, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: vonhend @ 1998-02-03 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) In <01bd2e9b$76253380$562c5c8b@aptiva>, "Jerry van Dijk" <jvandyk@ibm.net> writes: >> I'm running the latest version of GDB for WinNT on Win95 >> (I was told it should work with the latest GNAT WinNT distribution), >> and I just want to check on a few things: > >> 1) Does GDB decide to spontaneously abort half the time you >> load an executable? > >It does with me on Win95. > >> 2) Does GDB bring your entire system down to its knees when you >> try to quit? > >Note entirely, you can break it of using the tasklist. But this is indeed >another problem. > >> 3) Is the online help broken? When you click on anything, does >> it whine about not finding stdout or some Unix-ish nonsense? > >Never tried it. > >> 4) Does GDB expect you to debug in C, even though you just >> wrote your code in Ada? > >No. > >It seems that with certain configurations (although I cannot tell which >ones) >gdb for 3.10p1 will not work under Win95. > >Can anyone outside ACT report success with gdb under Win95 ? > >-- >-- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland >-- Team Ada | email: jdijk@acm.org > Don't know about WinDoze 95, but once I got used to it, I found that gdb for 3.10p works pretty well under OS/2. A real operating system seems to make quite the difference. M. Von Hendy LMTO ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
* Re: GDB Woes Continued... 1998-01-31 0:00 GDB Woes Continued wanker 1998-01-31 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk @ 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Stephen Leake 1 sibling, 0 replies; 22+ messages in thread From: Stephen Leake @ 1998-02-02 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) wanker@exploited.barmy.army wrote: > > I'm sorry if you are sick of hearing from me, but there is no > where else to turn. Nothing works, and the documentation > (when it is to be found) is 100% useless or worse (misleading). > > The only thing now keeping me from reverting to C/C++ (at least > I know their distributions work), is the fact that there are > people here who claim to actually have this stuff working, so > I still have some glimmer of hope. > Please remember that you are using free software; the value you get out of it is roughly proportional to the effort you put in (as opposed to what you paid for it!). Be patient, and persevere. GNAT/GDB is all based on the gnu software. For me, the best way to learn how to use it is to download the sources from MIT (ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/), because the sources usually have more complete documentation (and if you've got lots of time, you can actually read the code :). How much did you pay for your C/C++ environment? For about the same amount, you can buy an Ada compiler, and get a tech person to call. That said, I've used both ObjectAda (Professional Edition) and GNAT/GDB, and I prefer GNAT/GDB (except when I need to use Windows resources). But I've gone thru the process of configuring it and learning how to read the manuals. I still can't get GDB to work properly on my machine at work under Win95; but that machine also has NT, where GDB works fine. -- - Stephe ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 22+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1998-02-09 0:00 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 22+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 1998-01-31 0:00 GDB Woes Continued wanker 1998-01-31 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Roger Racine 1998-02-02 0:00 ` wanker 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Ronald Cole 1998-02-03 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Jerry van Dijk 1998-02-05 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 1998-02-09 0:00 ` Martin C. Carlisle 1998-02-04 0:00 ` Andrew Lynch 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen 1998-02-04 0:00 ` John English 1998-02-04 0:00 ` nA edisA Nick Roberts 1998-02-02 0:00 ` GDB Woes Continued Martin C. Carlisle 1998-02-03 0:00 ` vonhend 1998-02-02 0:00 ` Stephen Leake
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