dlyons@Apple.COM (David A. Lyons) (07/23/90)
Hey, the second A2-Central Developers Conference in Kansas City happened! I hope everybody will post their reactions to everything that went on there. I spent most of the time either doing presentations (on debugging and writing DAs/inits/CDevs), or helping attack bugs in the bug-busting room. A special version of GSBug and the new Nifty List 3.0 were instumental in the short life expectancy of any bug walking through the door. (State Farm considered all bugs on the Avila College campus "high risk" and did not sell life insurance to any of them.) Coming soon to comp.binaries.apple2 near you! Nifty List 3.0 Davex 1.27 Visit Applesoft CDA 1.1 (this was on the disk I gave out in KC) -- David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc. | DAL Systems Apple II Developer Technical Support | P.O. Box 875 America Online: Dave Lyons | Cupertino, CA 95015-0875 GEnie: D.LYONS2 or DAVE.LYONS CompuServe: 72177,3233 Internet/BITNET: dlyons@apple.com UUCP: ...!ames!apple!dlyons My opinions are my own, not Apple's.
jonah@amos.ucsd.edu (Jonah Stich) (07/23/90)
In article <43263@apple.Apple.COM> dlyons@Apple.COM (David A. Lyons) writes: >Hey, the second A2-Central Developers Conference in Kansas City >happened! I hope everybody will post their reactions to everything >that went on there. Me too! I'd particularly like to hear about the animation toolset and the new sound tools. Also, I'd like to know the date of the Fest next year (assuming there is going to be one) so that I can go.(I couldn't og to this one because plane tickets are $600 when you try to order them the week before :) >I spent most of the time either doing presentations (on debugging >and writing DAs/inits/CDevs), or helping attack bugs in the >bug-busting room. Okay, Dave, I'm curious. What advice WOULD you give for debugging these particularly CDevs? I'm working on one right now, and it's a REAL pain in the but to debug. Also, NDA and Init debuggin would be of interest, as I'm working on those, too. >A special version of GSBug and the new Nifty List 3.0 were instumental >in the short life expectancy of any bug walking through the door. >(State Farm considered all bugs on the Avila College campus "high risk" >and did not sell life insurance to any of them.) Will this 'special' version be avaliable to us common folk, or is it too special? >Coming soon to comp.binaries.apple2 near you! > Nifty List 3.0 > Davex 1.27 > Visit Applesoft CDA 1.1 (this was on the disk I gave out in KC) Speaking of disks given out in KC, is there any way to get copiies of these? II heard there were going to be some nice ones distributed, and I wanted to take a look at some of the stuff.... >-- >David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc. | DAL Systems Jonah Stich jonah@amos.ucsd.edu
dlyons@Apple.COM (David A. Lyons) (07/25/90)
In article <11982@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> jonah@amos.ucsd.edu (Jonah Stich) writes: >[...] Also, I'd like to know the date of the Fest next year (assuming >there is going to be one) so that I can go.(I couldn't og to this one because >plane tickets are $600 when you try to order them the week before :) Well, if you subscribe to A2-Central you'll definitely know about it in time. 913-469-6502. Otherwise, ask for info on the net next May or so, I guess (the last two conferences have been right around July 20, and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a tradition). DL>I spent most of the time either doing presentations (on debugging DL>and writing DAs/inits/CDevs), or helping attack bugs in the DL>bug-busting room. >Okay, Dave, I'm curious. What advice WOULD you give for debugging these >particularly CDevs? I'm working on one right now, and it's a REAL pain in >the but to debug. Also, NDA and Init debuggin would be of interest, as I'm >working on those, too. Whoops, my statement was a -little- ambiguous there...what I meant was a session on "debugging" and another session on "writing DAs/inits/CDevs," but I *do* have some specific ideas for debugging CDevs (see below). DL>A special version of GSBug and the new Nifty List 3.0 were instumental DL>in the short life expectancy of any bug walking through the door. >Will this 'special' version be avaliable to us common folk, or is it too >special? The "special" version is GSBug 1.5b9, and it is presently available only to Apple Partners ($300/yr), Apple Associates ($150/yr) [call 408-974- 4897 for info], and to folks who attended KansasFest. (They *aren't* supposed to distribute it.) (If you're a partner or associate, look on the Discy Business CD-ROM for the beta GSBug.) In a few months, APDA will be shipping the real GSBug 1.5 (not beta). *For now*, here are a couple ideas on debugging CDevs. Use the version of GSBug you have for single stepping through the code. Before 1.5, you can't type in the debugger while an NDA is in front (with 1.5xx, press the CapsLock key and you can type keys to the application or in GSBug). Alternatively, you can use a pre-1.5 GSBug and hack the Control Panel NDA's event mask so that it does not accept key-down or autoKey events. Nifty List 3.0 will help you find your code resource in memory, after the control panel loads it (use 5000i, for example). If you want to load it manually and debug it outside the Control Panel environment, fine...you can do an _OpenResourceFile and _LoadResource call right from Nifty List. You may have to feed GetCodeResConverter into ResourceConverter first, to make it process your code resource during the LoadResource. Then you could just create "fake" calls to your CDev code from GSBug, with some handy window on the screen (maybe resize the Finder's Trash window and then do a NewControl2 on your CDev's controls). >Speaking of disks given out in KC, is there any way to get copiies of these? >II heard there were going to be some nice ones distributed, and I wanted to >take a look at some of the stuff.... In general, no. The one I was -personally- giving out is no problem--that stuff will all be on comp.binaries.apple2 soon. (Was going to do it last night, but it took a lot longer than I thought to get my high-speed SCSI card and new hard drive up and running last night.) (By the way, has anybody else had trouble using the high-speed SCSI card after installing the special OS and drivers that come with it, over your existing 5.0.2 installation? My system was hanging about 2/3 of the way through my boot, apparently in the middle of a SCSI read. I solved the problem temporarily by turning off the DMA switch on the card, but that shouldn't be necessary--I don't have a large memory card or any other DMA peripherals in that particular system.) >Jonah Stich >jonah@amos.ucsd.edu -- David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc. | DAL Systems Apple II Developer Technical Support | P.O. Box 875 America Online: Dave Lyons | Cupertino, CA 95015-0875 GEnie: D.LYONS2 or DAVE.LYONS CompuServe: 72177,3233 Internet/BITNET: dlyons@apple.com UUCP: ...!ames!apple!dlyons My opinions are my own, not Apple's.
bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Bob Sherman) (07/26/90)
Dave, Many thanks for sharing your KansasFest info and papers with those of us who for one reason or another did not make it out there this year.. Although my body was stuck here in hot Florida trying to work my way from under an extra heavy workload, my heart was with all of you in hot Kansas. Thanks Again!!!!! -- bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu | bsherman@pro-exchange | MCI MAIL:BSHERMAN
jason@madnix.UUCP (Jason Blochowiak) (07/30/90)
In article <11982@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> jonah@amos.ucsd.edu (Jonah Stich) writes: [In response to an article by Dave Lyons about KFest] >Me too! I'd particularly like to hear about the animation toolset and the new >sound tools. Well, they were pretty cool. I haven't had time to beat on the new sound tools (or read through the docs), but, from a superficial standpoint, I was impressed. Mensch (the guy responsible for the Animation Toolkit) says that the toolkit can't nuke custom coding, and is primarily there for people who don't want to get into the guts of dealing with speedy animation, but do want some of the results. I can't say for sure (seeing as I also didn't get to beat on this one), but from what he described, his assessment was correct: If you want top- speed animation, you're going to have to do it yourself; however, if you want reasonable speed animation, you should be able to get it out of the toolkit. It sounds pretty versatile, and moderately powerful. [Dave Lyons wrote:] >>I spent most of the time either doing presentations (on debugging >>and writing DAs/inits/CDevs), or helping attack bugs in the >>bug-busting room. Let me publicly compliment you on that: Dave and Matt did a fine job on the content and presentation, and the Q&A session was quite useful, despite my amnesia ;) (which certainly couldn't be attributed to them...) >Okay, Dave, I'm curious. What advice WOULD you give for debugging these >particularly CDevs? I'm working on one right now, and it's a REAL pain in >the but to debug. Also, NDA and Init debuggin would be of interest, as I'm >working on those, too. >>A special version of GSBug and the new Nifty List 3.0 were instumental >>in the short life expectancy of any bug walking through the door. The new Nifty List is _much_ improved. I can't say much about the new version of GSBug, as I haven't used it much before, but it's been quite useful these last few days. (I didn't use either before - now, both are proving nearly indispensable) As far as debugging techniques for non-apps go: One thing that you can do in non-production releases of stuff is: PushLong #0 _GetPort PushLong #0 _GetWMgrPort _SetPort ... _SetPort For the "..." you can do an EraseRect() of some screen area, and then draw some junk into that area (e.g. the values of some critical variables). Of course, you can get some really ugly flicker & screen results, but the Window Manager port is always there (for NDAs & CDevs, anyways), and you can either use an existing app or a custom "host" app to provide tools for whatever info you want to show yourself. This is basically an alternative to the "do a GetMouse(), if in the u/l corner, switch to the text screen to show what you've printed there" - which has some advantages over the method I just suggested (primarily that you have 24 lines of scrolling "history", which you don't have if you're EraseRect()'ing over your info). One of the advantages is that you don't have to be the app to mangle the screen in this fashion... There are also some provisions (which, of course, also have their limitations) in the new version of GSBug for this sort of thing. Just out of curiousity, is Apple planning on releasing shells for the various thingies in the System folder? Such as the CDev shell available for the Mac? (I'm pretty sure that Apple didn't write it, but that's kinda besides the point) I'd be willing to bet that if Apple provided the source for something like that, it could make debugging various things much easier... I'm hoping to write up a little something about KansasFest '90, but I've tried doing something of that sort before and have gotten hopelessly sidetracked, so if I don't get around to it: I enjoyed KF alot, and it was definitely worth the time and the money (IMHO, of course). It's great to go to if you want to meet the faces behind the e-mail accounts, and, of course, the communication tends to be a lot more dynamic than is possible through e-mail, or even over the phone (I finally got to meet some of the people that I've been doing work for...). The sessions, although quite useful and (with one major exeception) informative, were secondary for me... >>David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc. | DAL Systems >Jonah Stich >jonah@amos.ucsd.edu -- Jason Blochowiak - jason@madnix.UUCP or, try: astroatc!nicmad!madnix!jason@spool.cs.wisc.edu "Education, like neurosis, begins at home." - Milton R. Saperstein
mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) (07/31/90)
In article <1437@madnix.UUCP> jason@madnix.UUCP (Jason Blochowiak) writes: > > Just out of curiousity, is Apple planning on releasing shells for the >various thingies in the System folder? Such as the CDev shell available for the >Mac? (I'm pretty sure that Apple didn't write it, but that's kinda besides the >point) I'd be willing to bet that if Apple provided the source for something >like that, it could make debugging various things much easier... > > Jason Blochowiak - jason@madnix.UUCP Shame, shame on you. If you'd investigated those three disks of Sample Code you took home (or should have), you'd have found CDev shells in assembly, C and Pascal. -- ============================================================================ Matt Deatherage, Apple Computer, Inc. | "The opinions represented here are Developer Technical Support, Apple II | not necessarily those of Apple Group. Personal mail only, please. | Computer, Inc. Remember that." ============================================================================