From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,CP1252 X-Google-Thread: 103376,ddc669e8cf09b24 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-07-11 11:42:31 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!wn13feed!wn12feed!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi_feed4!attbi.com!rwcrnsc53.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3F0F04F1.7080903@attbi.com> From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Debugger Rant (was Re: How to debug an Ada program) References: <254c16a.0307110505.463b1cc0@posting.google.com> <3F0ED3FF.65497AEE@raytheon.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.62.164.137 X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-Trace: rwcrnsc53 1057948951 24.62.164.137 (Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:42:31 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:42:31 GMT Organization: Comcast Online Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:42:31 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:40201 Date: 2003-07-11T18:42:31+00:00 List-Id: 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.