[Mono-list] How do you debug?

[Ivan Hawkes]

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On Friday 04 Jul 2003 10:58 pm, Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> Hello,
>
> > Oh well, they say patience is a virtue. It's going to be pretty tedious
> > without one though.
>
> If it is of any relief, Linus has some refreshing words on the subject:
>
>
>         I happen to believe that not having a kernel debugger forces
>         people to
>         think about their problem on a different level than with a
>         debugger. I
>         think that without a debugger, you don't get into that mindset
>         where you
>         know how it behaves, and then you fix it from there. Without a
>         debugger,
>         you tend to think about problems another way. You want to
>         understand
>         things on a different _level_.
>
>
> From:
>     http://lists.insecure.org/linux-kernel/2000/Sep/1177.html
>
> Agreed, it is not the same.  But I think that he has a valid point when
> it comes to the way you look at bugs.
>
> We are working hard on a debugger, but there are some other priorities
> that we have to look at.
>
>
> Miguel

I tend to agree with Linus on this one, as for the first 10 years of my=20
programming career I didn't have or use any debuggers and I am certain it h=
as=20
made me a far better programmer today :-) I can usually model and run all t=
he=20
code in my head, before I whack it into the machine a skill some of the tea=
m=20
at my work don't seem to possess (mainly I reckon cause they fire up the=20
debugger too soon).

On the other hand 20,000 lines of someone elses code is a lot to grapple wi=
th=20
when porting from one OS to another and having a peak at code flow and=20
variable values can save masses of time. I'm only using Kate as my editor a=
s=20
well, so I already don't have Intellisense, context sensitive help, or the=
=20
"goto definition" function I love so much. Still, progress is incredibly=20
rapid, due mainly I'd say to two things:

1. The guys (work programming team who wrote the software I am about to=20
convert) did a top notch job on the coding.
2. You and the Mono team have done an incredible job matching the API with =
the=20
MS API. I have 17,000 lines already compiled and at least mostly working in=
 1=20
day and with only 4 lines of code changed (damn back slashes).

I'm pretty hopeful I can get the code across, and even get it performing we=
ll=20
too...now I gotta try and see if I can convince the company to Open Source =
it=20
once I have done the conversion *sigh*. It's a very neat content management=
=20
system BTW.
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