moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Haynes Moster) (04/10/90)
Well, Manx has stuck it to us Amiga C users again. When they came out with their symbolic debugger SDB, it cost ~$75 and couldn't even properly display the values of such primitive variable types as "floats". In fact, it had trouble displaying array variables at all. So, here it is, more than a year later and finally, months after the stated release date, they come out with an upgrade. The "upgraded" SDB can display floats, but still has trouble with array variables and, worst of all, crashes A LOT! In fact, I think it is safe to say that most programs that one wishes to debug with it probably have fewer bugs in it than the debugger. What does Manx say? Well, they say that they are working on another upgrade and in the mean time I could use the old version of the debugger!! I hope I live long enough to see their next downgrade...errr....upgrade--after all I'm already 30. What can I do about crap like this? They've taken my money and haven't given me even a decent program, and it's worse after the upgrade!! I'm tired of waiting for them to get their act together. Does anyone feel the same way I do? Richard
chrisl@caen.engin.umich.edu (Chris Lang) (04/11/90)
In article <7116@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Haynes Moster) writes: > What can I do about crap like this? They've taken my money >and haven't given me even a decent program, and it's worse after the >upgrade!! I'm tired of waiting for them to get their act together. > > Does anyone feel the same way I do? Maybe somewhere, but not here! :-) I have found SDB to be more stable than, say, CPR, which I find crashing occasionally on perfectly acceptable statements, and exhibiting all manner of strange behavior. And both SDB and CPR are infinitely more powerful than the stuff I "get" to work with at work, CodeView and MultiScope. I would kill for the chance to play with an OS/2 version of EITHER SDB or CPR. Disclaimer: I do not beat heavily on my debuggers, preferring other debugging techniques, so I may not have uncovered the same bugs that others who rely more heavily on debuggers have. > Richard -Chris -- Chris Lang, University of Michigan, College of Engineering +1 313 763 1832 4622 Bursley, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109 chrisl@caen.engin.umich.edu WORK: National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, 900 Victors Way, Suite 226, Ann Arbor, MI, 48108 +1 313 995 0300 "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (04/11/90)
In article <7116@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Haynes Moster) writes: > Does anyone feel the same way I do? No, I can't say that I do. SDB has saved me hundreds of hours of debugging time; I use it every day. If you want to use it with floating point, you have to use the right libraries. If you don't want it to crash, don't compile with optimization. That is documented. Also, don't resize the window during startup until SDB has finished writing to it for the first time. Bogus, admittedly, but hardly fatal. Granted, it's not perfect, and it does have some problems with arrays, although that seems to be more with command-line-specified indexes -- it doesn't always get the index right, so you have to go 0, 2, 4, instead of 0, 1, 2, but... one of the worst programs ever on the Amiga??? Hardly. In my book, as a developer, despite its flaws, one of the most useful ever. -- -- uunet!sugar!karl "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -- Emerson -- Usenet access: (713) 438-5018
chrise@hubcap.clemson.edu (Chris Everhart) (04/11/90)
> Maybe somewhere, but not here! :-) I have found SDB to be more stable than, > say, CPR, which I find crashing occasionally on perfectly acceptable statements, > and exhibiting all manner of strange behavior. And both SDB and CPR are > infinitely more powerful than the stuff I "get" to work with at work, CodeView Which version of Lattice were you working with? I have 5.05, and no problems so far with CPR. It's been rock solid. Also remember that when you add some debugging code to a program, you change the program itself. The only crashing I've seen come while debugging is from a word alignment error. The code looked just fine, but I had made a stupid error of trying to align an integer on an odd address. If you have some examples which you know will cause the thing to crash, let me know. I want to try them out. Happy computing, Chris Everhart chrise@hubcap.clemson.edu weverha@hubcap.clemson.edu
moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Haynes Moster) (04/12/90)
In article <5557@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: >In article <7116@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Haynes Moster) writes: >> Does anyone feel the same way I do? > >No, I can't say that I do. SDB has saved me hundreds of hours of debugging >time; I use it every day. > >If you want to use it with floating point, you have to use the right libraries. I've been very careful about using just the libraries they tell me to use in the manual. Besides, I'm not having trouble with floating point anymore--that was the one shortcoming they seemed to have fixed in this update. >If you don't want it to crash, don't compile with optimization. That is >documented. I don't compile with optimization. The only switches I use are to indicate the name of the precompiled include file, to invoke QuickFix, and to compile the program for SDB. >Also, don't resize the window during startup until SDB has finished writing >to it for the first time. Bogus, admittedly, but hardly fatal. I don't normally touch the window, although about 35% of the time if I waited for SDB to finish writing to it for the first time I would die in front of the screen since it bombs out even before writing to the window. >Granted, it's not perfect, and it does have some problems with arrays, although >that seems to be more with command-line-specified indexes -- it doesn't always >get the index right, so you have to go 0, 2, 4, instead of 0, 1, 2, but... one >of the worst programs ever on the Amiga??? Hardly. In my book, as a >developer, despite its flaws, one of the most useful ever. Well, maybe I'm just not holding my mouth right and maybe I'm using it at the wrong time of day and maybe I'm wearing the wrong color shirt. But seriously, I got used to using Microsoft's CodeView on an IBM AT and it always seem to work perfectly. But with SDB I just feel like I'm treading on thin ice and I discover new bugs every time I use it (assuming it runs at all). Someone just e-mailed me telling me that it doesn't correctly print out unsigned shorts, either. In fact, Manx admits SDB has a lot of bugs--they told to me use the old version until they could fix the new one! --Richard
rick@tmiuv0.uucp (04/12/90)
In article <7116@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Haynes Moster) writes: > Well, Manx has stuck it to us Amiga C users again. > > When they came out with their symbolic debugger SDB, it cost > ~$75 and couldn't even properly display the values of such primitive > variable types as "floats". In fact, it had trouble displaying array > variables at all.> What can I do about crap like this? They've taken my money > and haven't given me even a decent program, and it's worse after the > upgrade!! I'm tired of waiting for them to get their act together. [stuff deleted...] > > Does anyone feel the same way I do? > > Richard I do. I've never used SDB. I can't stand it. I use MetaScope. MUCH better, and can help debug concurrent tasks. .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. / [- O] Rick Stevens (All opinions are mine. Everyone ignores them anyway.) \ | ? +--------------------------------------------------------------------| | V | uunet!zardoz!tmiuv0!rick (<-- Work (ugh!)) | |--------+ uunet!zardoz!xyclone!sysop (<-- Home Unix (better!)) | | uunet!perigrine!ccicpg!conexch!amoeba2!rps2 (<-- Home Amiga (Best!!) | \ 75006.1355@compuserve.com (CIS: 75006,1355) (<-- CI$) / `-------------------------------------------------------------------------' "I bought some instant water, but didn't know what to add." - Steven Wright