[lug] At last! A graphical debugger.

[rm at fabula.de]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2002 at 09:33:46PM -0700, Tom Tromey wrote:
> >>>>> "Scott" == Scott A Herod <herod at interact-tv.com> writes:
> 
> Scott> [herod at torries bin]$ ./gdb --version
> Scott> GNU gdb 5.0
> 
> Thanks.  That's actually fairly old in Insight terms.
> 
> Scott> The reasons that I now prefer DDD include; motif ( makes it
> Scott> peppier ), mouse-over a variable can show its value
> 
> Insight can do this these days.
> 
> Scott> it has a graphical method of displaying watch variables,
> Scott> displaying classes in tables with arrows linking to other
> Scott> structures, and graphical display of arrays.
> 
> Yeah, those are definite advantages.
> 
> I tend not to use variable watches at all any more.  gdb has a
> tendency to crash when I use them, and that negative reinforcement has
> made me stop using them.  The problem is most acute when you're doing
> a lot of debugging in a shared library, so I suspect it isn't a
> failure mode most people see.  (Too bad, if it were it would get
> fixed.)
> 
> Scott> On a related note, I wonder how hard it would be to make some
> Scott> of the display tools work with jdb.  I know you work on gcj,
> Scott> Tom, have you done anything with Insight in that direction?
> 
> Nope.  A long time ago Per modified gdb to work with gcj-compiled
> code.  This support has bit-rotted a little but is still functional
> enough for simple debugging.  libgcj doesn't implement JVMDI (or
> whatever it is these days -- the interpreter debugging interface), so
> jdb doesn't work with it (and so I've never used jdb).  Also, Insight
> is linked to gdb, it isn't like DDD or Emacs or any other program that
> interprets gdb's output.
> 
> My favorite Insight feature is that it lets you save your debugging
> state.  So my complicated breakpoint commands and conditions are
> saved, and I can easily start debugging on an old session again.  I
> use this feature heavily.
> 
> 
> There's another gdb wrapper written in Ada that uses Gtk+.  I think it
> can also wrap jdb and some other debuggers.  I haven't tried it
> though.  Have you?

I have, and since then it's my (graphical) debugger of coice. What i really
liked about DDD is it's excellent documentation (hmm, the suff i read was
probbly in german :-/) but i do prefer gvd's  GTK look-n-feel. Also it interacts
nicely with (x)emacs (you can even use emacs as the embeded editor) and 
GNU nana (i use nana to instrument code - GVD let's me both save a session and
come back later after code modifications or replay sessions  with different program
input, something i often need during parser construction).

I'm actually quite shure that on an 'objective' level there's probably little
DDD or insight couldn't do as well or better. I guess Look and feel do play an
important role sometimes. Oh, one thing i sometimes miss in GVD: i tend to 
alter and extend my tools and that's a bit hard with GVD (no intention to get
into ADA programming :-)

  Ralf Mattes
need 
> Tom
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