From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: GDB Woes Continued...
Date: 1998/02/05
Date: 1998-02-05T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <1998Feb5.055818.1@eisner> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 98020216364905@psavax.pwfl.com
In article <98020216364905@psavax.pwfl.com>, "Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96" <condicma@PWFL.COM> writes:
> Robert Dewar <dewar@MERV.CS.NYU.EDU> writes:
>>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.
>>
> This is very true for most types of "workstation-ish" programs. In
> most of the things I've built using Gnat on a Sun platform, I've
> found very little use for a debugger because you can usually bench
> check the code to be mostly error free from the beginning. (At
> least for the kinds of errors most commonly found with a debugger.
> If the program executes, but doesn't perform the task correctly
> because you've messed up a requirement somewhere, the debugger is
> going to be of little value.) Bench checking for routine errors
> also invariably leads to: "Gee! That's not supposed to be here..."
> sorts of discoveries which tend to minimize the fundamental flaws
> you don't see when checking for superficial flaws with a debugger.
While bench checking is useful, I find a debugger extremely valuable for
defective behavior which can be reproduced.
If you get a failure:
every time you run
always on the 537th invocation of a particular subprogram
within a given task
for a second parameter value of 7
a debugger relieves one of the need to join the "printf" school
of debugging (C terminology used intentionally). Just set a
conditional breakpoint and step line by line once you get there.
If need be on your next run you can back up to invocation 536.
Larry Kilgallen
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1998-02-05 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 31+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1998-02-02 0:00 GDB Woes Continued Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96
1998-02-05 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen [this message]
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1998-02-03 0:00 Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-96
1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-02-02 0:00 Robert Dewar
1998-02-04 0:00 ` Anonymous
1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-02-02 0:00 tmoran
1998-02-02 0:00 ` wanker
1998-02-02 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-01-31 0:00 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
1998-02-02 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1998-02-04 0:00 ` John English
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 ` Andrew Lynch
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 ` Roger Racine
1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-02-04 0:00 ` Roger Racine
1998-02-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1998-02-02 0:00 ` Martin C. Carlisle
1998-02-03 0:00 ` vonhend
1998-02-02 0:00 ` Stephen Leake
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