Xref: utzoo comp.lang.smalltalk:665 comp.lang.c++:1569 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!tekcrl!tekgvs!jans From: jans@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: OO debuggers Message-ID: <3930@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> Date: 12 Sep 88 18:19:45 GMT Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. Lines: 28 <be merely poor conversions of procedure-oriented language debuggers. >> <...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".> Unfortunately, C++ has taken the language veneer of object-orientation, just as the Macintosh took the user-interface veneer. Unless you narrowly define "generally-available" as "one I can use on an arbitrary Unix object file", you should look closely at the generally available Smalltalk-80 debugger, or even the less capable, but more generally available (meaning cheaper), Smalltalk-V debugger. (I think "generally available" means you can buy it for a reasonable price for the most popular computing platforms.) C++ has a lot of catching up to do, but it seems to be evolving strictly in the incestuous C-Unix environment. It currently provides nowhere near the productivity nor capability (except in execution speed, the least important metric in the present "software crisis") of even a moderate Smalltalk implementation, nor will it as long as people are thinking of dbx as the model to improve upon! C'mon, guys, if you're going to make things better, at least start with what was state-of-the art in 1980! :::::: Software Productivity Technologies -- Experiment Manager Project :::::: :::::: Jan Steinman N7JDB Box 500, MS 50-383 (w)503/627-5881 :::::: :::::: jans@tekcrl.TEK.COM Beaverton, OR 97077 (h)503/657-7703 ::::::