Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!roper
From: roper@june.cs.washington.edu (Michael Roper)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Debugging Windows
Message-ID: <8804@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 26 Jul 89 16:22:21 GMT
References: <30097@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <106580054@hpcvlx.HP.COM> <3229@rtech.rtech.com>
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 37

Mark Hanner writes:

> Windows forces you to write the code that sets up the mappings 
> for the video system, and unless you do it right, your program 
> will probably only work for a small set of video cards.

I'm not sure what this means.  Could you give an example?

> I don't see how you can [test a program] without having alot of 
> hardware.

I think a 386 with EMS and a multi-mode VGA will cover it in most
cases.  Certainly, writing conventional DOS software to run on
"every conceivable PC-compatible configuration" would require at
least this much hardware, if not significantly more.

> ...the development support tools simply aren't there (symdeb is 
> barely usable for dos applications, but is ludicrous for windows. 
> ...until the tools are there, building windows application will 
> continue to be part alchemy.

This is a different issue, but you'll get (almost) no argument from 
me.  Better tools are always welcome.  Still, while a tool such as
symdeb is hard to use, it is nevertheless quite powerful.  Some
very solid and complex Windows applications have been built using it.

What tools would you like to have?  This is an interesting subject
and I wouldn't mind seeing some discussion on it.  My pet peeve is
the uselessness of the dialog editor.  It could be made a lot smarter.
I'd like to see support for handling custom controls for one thing,
and a better user interface with operations such a one-touch centering.
As it is, I can't use it and have to edit all my dialog templates by
hand.  Entertaining it's not.


Michael Roper
hDC Computer Corp.