[Mono-osx] Mono development on OS X without a debugger? (was Re: Mono on Leopard)

[Stephen J. Anderson]

On 14 Nov 2007, at 05:37, Sean Hignett wrote:

> I think this thread as lost its value to the list.  Its become an  
> opinion session - and I am as guilty as all. This will be my last  
> spam out.
>

[...]

> Most of the experienced devs I know (and I mean years of experience  
> delivering non-trivial software (one friend used to write brain  
> scan imaging routines for german MRI company)), don't consider  
> debugging as important as tracing.  For all the problems people  
> have cited in this thread, their problem was more to do with  
> incomplete tracing code then with the abscence of a debugger.  Good  
> trace code will show most of what is required, and it can be used  
> in production, where you really need it.  Step through debugging is  
> a novice approach - most folks with time in the trenches use  
> debuggers for a sort of profiling - seeing running threads, stack  
> depth, etc.  The sort of stuff tracing doesn't reflect well.  But  
> they rarely step through code.

[...]

Well, as you say, it's all opinion. I have to respectfully disagree  
with you, as someone with "time in the trenches" ;-). For instance,  
when I started out doing UNIX programming, it was the novices who  
used tracing, because they couldn't understand what programs like gdb  
were telling them.

I think what we can take away from this is that perspectives differ,  
and the tools that people find useful differ too. In the end, it will  
be demand that determines which tools get built first.

I couldn't help but find it amusing that there now exists a  
development tool that can make emacs seem lightweight. :-)

Cheers,
Stephen.