Re: GDB Woes Continued...

[rracine@draper.com (Roger Racine)]

> > I'm running the latest version of GDB for WinNT on Win95
> > (I was told it should work with the latest GNAT WinNT distribution),
> > and I just want to check on a few things:
> 
> > 1) Does GDB decide to spontaneously abort half the time you
> >    load an executable?
> 
> It does with me on Win95.

I have not been able to get it to load an executable.  I get a "Something
wrong with xxxxx" message, where "xxxxx" is the file name.

>  
> > 2) Does GDB bring your entire system down to its knees when you
> >    try to quit?
> 
> Note entirely, you can break it of using the tasklist. But this is indeed
> another problem.
> 
> > 3) Is the online help broken?  When you click on anything, does
> >    it whine about not finding stdout or some Unix-ish nonsense?
> 
> Never tried it.

I get the same problem.

> 
> > 4) Does GDB expect you to debug in C, even though you just
> >    wrote your code in Ada?
> 
> No.

Does it have anything to do with how one compiles the program in
question?  I am using GIDE, with the switch set that creates debugger
information.  And I have still not been able to get the debugger to work.

> 
> It seems that with certain configurations (although I cannot tell which
> ones)
> gdb for 3.10p1 will not work under Win95.
> 
> Can anyone outside ACT report success with gdb under Win95 ?
> 
Not I.

The only reason I respond like this is that I, too, am a bit frustrated by
the level of documentation (especially when the Help system does not
work!).  

I have seen a message from Robert Dewar where he suggests that the
debugger is unnecessary, and I understand his position.  I do not think
the point is relevant, though, since a -lot- of people will be turned off
a language if the tools for that language do not meet their expectations,
no matter if the expectation is reasonable.  It would be better to not
have a tool than to have a bad one (or an undocumented one, where the tool
looks bad even if it can be made to work).

By the way, do not interpret this (or the original poster's message) as a
swipe at ACT, or Robert Dewar.  I applaud their effort to bring an
affordable, excellent product to the masses.  And I have found the
-compiler- to be reasonably well documented (it is too UNIX-oriented for
Windows users, but that is a different subject), and the compilation
system works quite well.

Please consider this as "constructive criticism" to the Ada community in
general.  If we want to get Ada accepted by the masses, we need to A)
provide tools the masses want (as opposed to what they need), and B)
provide usable tools (as opposed to useful tools).  That is a bit cynical,
but the point is that any tools that do not work "Off the Shelf" are not
going to be used.

Roger Racine