Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!purchase
From: purchase@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: OO debuggers
Message-ID: <37100002@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Sep 88 21:25:00 GMT
Lines: 42
Nf-ID: #N:pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk:37100002:000:1747
Nf-From: pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!purchase    Sep  9 21:25:00 1988


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. 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 anyone out there have
any opinions about this?

With this in mind, has anyone out there used a OO debug tool (or related
utility) of any real merit? Do you feel that a tool should be specialized
for the paradigm (or even language) which it supports?


In connection with this, does anyone have the addresses (email or otherwise)
of the following:-

Norm Kerth (University of Portland)
Dan Moore  (US West)

Both of whom submitted some interesting comments to the OO Tools workshop of
OOPSLA 87.


I would be eternally grateful for any help
J.P.



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FROM: Jan Andrew Purchase           | Snail:     Room 208, PhD Lab.,
at : pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk		    |            Computer Science Dept.,
			            |		 University College,
				    |		 London, UK.
				    |
JANET: purchase@cs.ucl.ac.uk          Usenet: {uk}!cs.ucl.ac.uk!purchase
	ARPANET: purchase%cs.ucl.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
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      (these are my views, and are not necessarily those of UCL)
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