"David S. Miller" wrote:
> This is what a debugger does not do for you. The debugger allows you
> to be lazy, step around, "oh yeah check for NULL" and never have to
> _think_ about what you're doing or the changes you're making or even
> if the same bug might be elsewhere.
>
> This is why Linus does not allow a debugging facility like this into
> the kernel, so people spend time _thinking_ when they go hunting down
> bugs.
>
> It takes longer to nail a bug, yes, but the resulting fix is always
> far superior. And the person who discovers the bug leaves with a much
> larger amount of knowledge about how that area of the kernel works.
This is like working on an engine with the hood closed. Sure, you can
feel around inside and you will *really* know a lot about your engine
when you're finished but you are not necessarily using your time in
the most efficient way. Personally, I will work with whatever tools
are available, and if they're really seriously broken I'll stop
working on the problem and go work on the tools instead. For the work
I'm doing in Linux, the tools aren't quite so seriously broken, but
that's just my specific work.
I have worked extensively with source level debuggers on systems large
and small - from IBM mainframes to embedded processors. I do not feel
that my problem-solving abilities have suffered as a result.
Normally, I spend a very long time in the design/analysis phase and a
very short time in debugging. (The older I get, the more time I spend
in analysis and the less in debugging.) In simple terms, working with
a source level debugger frees up even more time to spend on analysis.
More analysis is good. The best bug fix is the one you never have to
make.
Yes, I agree, some students will benefit from being forced to debug
the good oldfashioned way, by pure intellect. But the Linux community
as a whole benefits much more when we can make better use of the
all-too-scarce programming hours of experienced developers.
-- Daniel - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 07 2000 - 21:00:22 EST