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,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,5265ce03ee8f5252 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-01-07 09:14:04 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!mtu.ru!Radio-MSU.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!iad-read.news.verio.net.POSTED!kilgallen From: Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam (Larry Kilgallen) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ok sorry, it is just a book gives no feedback. Message-ID: References: <931r2l$4ai5t$2@ID-25716.news.dfncis.de> <931t08$5u5$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <932632$e0e$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <932an8$ijs$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <93421h$2ju$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <934j5c$eu9$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <937jk6$s6l$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <9386t0$av0$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <938qom$ptd$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Organization: LJK Software Date: 7 Jan 2001 12:12:48 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.44.122.34 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: iad-read.news.verio.net 978887573 216.44.122.34 (Sun, 07 Jan 2001 17:12:53 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2001 17:12:53 GMT Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:3755 Date: 2001-01-07T12:12:48-05:00 List-Id: In article <938qom$ptd$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, Robert Dewar writes: > I find that people who "detest" certain styles of working and > working environments sometimes lack the flexibility to deal > with difficult situations. It sounds for instance like you > would be really stuck if you were in a hiesenbug situation > where the bug does not appear if you operate in the presence > of the debugger. This can most certainly happen with some kinds > of erroneous programs, or where timing problems are an issue. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I detested it. I think one of the great debugger advances has been to use a small engine in the process being debugged and put the great bulk of the debugger (GUI, etc.) into another process where it will not impact addresses, etc. (Of course that does not eliminate the heisenbug possibility, but it reduces it in my experience). The advent of this approach, however, was probably motivated as much by kernel mode symbolic debugging as by taking pity on those of us who were bitten by problems that go away in the presence of the debugger. > Indeed in real time programs, the paradigm of breakpoint and > examine often breaks down badly. Yes, there are some > asyncrhonous debugging tools around (like OCS Aprobe) which > can be very valuable in such situations, but sometimes, a > judiciously placed put_line can be the most efficient and > effective debugging approach. If you are sure you "detest" > such an approach, you may end up proceeding in less than > an optimal manner. Flexibility is always a plus. Detesting something is different from being unable to do it-- but I would expect code labeled PURE to be thoroughly debugged outside that realtime environment through unit test and test coverage analysis. > Larry, I take it you are still stuck in an Ada 83 environment, > where this particular issue does not arise? (I say that because > it is quite a familiar problem to Ada 95 programmers :-) I am quite happy programming in Ada 83, even for compilers that support Ada 95, in order to preserve portability. In our past discussions in this newsgroup when I point out operating systems without Ada 95 support you have said they are not popular operating systems with ACT customers.