Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!att-ih!pacbell!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!cae780!leadsv!laic!darin
From: darin@laic.UUCP (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: SDB: What no menus?
Message-ID: <194@laic.UUCP>
Date: 31 Mar 88 21:54:26 GMT
References: <1028@pur-phy> <935@rmi.UUCP> <7901@oberon.USC.EDU> <5550@well.UUCP> <1187@percival.UUCP>
Organization: Lockheed AI Center, Menlo Park
Lines: 30

In article <1187@percival.UUCP>, baer@percival.UUCP (Ken Baer) writes:
> The only other debugger I've used is UNIX dbx.  SDB beats it hands down.
> Happy Hacking Everyone!
> 	-Ken Baer.  					 

Yes, it does beat dbx.  However, I find dbxtool on the Suns to be about
equivalent (maybe not as powerful, but easier to use).  I find
DEBUG on VAX/VMS even more powerful (even though it still can't figure
out C strings).  It has a screen mode, with optional register window
(I REALLY would like this in SDB), commands aren't cryptic and
may be abbreviated (in dbx I have to always alias print, step, etc
in .dbxinit), as well as having lots of powerful commands.  It even
lets you debug Ada tasks (if you're into that sort of thing).  The only
real drawbacks are that you can't restart your program without leaving
the debugger (ugh), and you often have to dereference C strings to print
them (even then it sometimes doesn't work), and it has lots of VMS-isms.

It would be nice if debugger writers for UNIX or Amiga could take a look
at this debugger sometimes instead of assuming that if it does better than
the dbx/sdb/adb suite that it must be pretty good.  Of course, writing
(or even porting) debuggers is hard enough without having to try and please
everybody.

Kudo's to Jim for en excellent debugger.  It has helped me find lots
of bugs, and even bugs that hadn't surfaced yet!

-- 
Darin Johnson (...ucbvax!sun!sunncal!leadsv!laic!darin)
              (...lll-lcc.arpa!leadsv!laic!darin)
	All aboard the DOOMED express!