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,ddc669e8cf09b24 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-07-16 19:21:50 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Debugger Rant Date: 16 Jul 2003 19:21:49 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: <254c16a.0307110505.463b1cc0@posting.google.com> <3F148F80.1000708@attbi.com> <254c16a.0307161124.633c9245@posting.google.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.152.82.223 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1058408510 32095 127.0.0.1 (17 Jul 2003 02:21:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 Jul 2003 02:21:50 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:40380 Date: 2003-07-17T02:21:50+00:00 List-Id: Marc A. Criley wrote: >A debugger, like a whiteboard, is a powerful software development >tool, and I would fiercely oppose giving up either of them, or having >someone level at me the notion that they were simply a crutch. Well, you occasionally may need your revolver at your office workplace, I understand -:) . All right, keep your revolver at hand, if you are sure that you can control it and that it may be of good use. >After several years of reading the occasional response to an Ada >newbie that they'll virtually never need a debugger when programming >in Ada (as well as that if the code compiles, it'll probably work)--I >just got fed up with it. But it is normal to work in offices without revolvers, especially for newbies, isn't it? Just imagine that all people in your office are carrying loaded revolvers -:) -- it will be more like a squadron of 19-century cowboys than a programmer team. Yes, certainly there are cases where debugger is badly needed. But these cases aren't for newbies anyway. Also, there are cases where you can locate some stupid local error much quicker with debugger than without it -- I mean the situations where you know that there is an error in those several lines, and you look straight at the error -- and don't see it. But with Ada those situations are much less likely to occur than with other (existing) languages. (And yes, every time when I work with debugger I feel myself as I have a revolver in my hand -:) Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru Saint-Petersburg Russia