Re: Debugger Rant (was Re: How to debug an Ada program)

["Robert I. Eachus" <rieachus@attbi.com>]

Jerry Petrey wrote:

> I certainly agree with you Marc.  While a debugger may not be needed as much in
> Ada (and certainly not as much for the simpler problems) as in other languages, it
> is an indispensable tool in complex Ada applications, especially in the real-time,
> embedded world.

Shurg!  I guess I have internalized a style of programming once known as 
  "Design to test."  In other words, all (formal) requirements are 
testable, and you design and code from day one to make passing those 
tests as easy as possible.

I was recently working on a bug in Ada.Text_IO.Editing in GNAT.  I 
didn't use a debugger, and couldn't imagine the pain of trying to.  The 
issue of course, was that any changes to make "#*#" recognized as 
invalid had to leave the behavior on hundreds of test cases unchanged. 
I needed automated testing that did not depend on the debugger.  (In 
fact several times I got fixes bounced because I wasn't using as many 
test cases as ACT.)

Even if you want to consider Ada.Text_IO.Editing as separate from GNAT, 
and Ada.Text_IO, it has about 3000 lines including two parsers...

-- 

                                                        Robert I. Eachus

�In an ally, considerations of house, clan, planet, race are 
insignificant beside two prime questions, which are: 1. Can he shoot? 2. 
Will he aim at your enemy?� -- from the Laiden novels by Sharon Lee and 
Steve Miller.