Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!argosy!becher
From: becher@argosy.UUCP (Jonathan D. Becher)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: OO debuggers
Summary: Show me a "real" debugger
Message-ID: <10@argosy.UUCP>
Date: 11 Sep 88 23:47:39 GMT
References: <36300007@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Reply-To: becher@zaphod.UUCP (Jonathan D. Becher)
Organization: Duke University, Dept of Computer Science
Lines: 41

In article <36300007@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk> purchase@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes:
>I am currently conducting some research into object oriented debugging tools
>and techniques. I have been surprised and disappointed to learn that most
>of the testing/debugging tools I have come across for OO languages seem to
>be merely poor conversions of procedure-oriented language debuggers. 

So we have poor conversions of poor products ...

>It is neither polite nor legal to mention any products by name, but with 
>few exceptions, most OO debugging tools seem to be afterthoughts. I might 
>be wrong, but I think that languages of a (relatively) new paradigm like 
>OOP need *new* innovative support tools to back them. Does any one out 
>there have any strong opinions about this?

You are not wrong - you are absolutely right.  
However, this lack of debugging tools is not confined to the OO domain.
I defy you to show you one generally-available debugger that is the least
bit "innovative".  They all seem to be stuck in the Linton dbx mold --
i.e. dumb terminal textual rather than multiple window graphical (no
offense Mark, but the time has come to move on).  From what I can gather
there are precious few people working on the debugging problem
(Zellwegger and Cargill are exceptions).

>With this in mind, has anyone out there used a OO debug tool (or related
>utility) of any real merit? 

No (see above).  In my humble opinion, gdb+ doesn't even come close.
(Although, admittedly, it's better than almost anything else).

>Do you feel that a tool should be specialized for the paradigm (or even 
>language) which it supports?

Definitely.

>FROM: Jan Andrew Purchase           
>JANET: purchase@cs.ucl.ac.uk          Usenet: {uk}!cs.ucl.ac.uk!purchase
>	ARPANET: purchase%cs.ucl.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk

Jon Becher						    ARPANET: becher@cs.duke.edu
Duke University					       OR    argosy!becher@decwrl.dec.com
Department of Computer Science 
(currently on leave)