[ENH] Enhanced Debugging Experience (first shot)

Ross Boylan RossBoylan at stanfordalumni.org
Sat Jul 21 22:54:38 UTC 2001


Wow!  Sounds like great stuff.  I had two posts June 29 + 30 "Debugger
Desirable Features" if you're running out of projects :).

It looks as if you've fixed, or at least improved the problem with
next statement highlighting that I mentioned in those posts (item 2
below).

The other item was that "send" should be able to move you out of a method.

While I'm at it, having the ability to move to the exit from a method
(ie. do all the steps in this method and then pop up the debugger when
I return to the caller) would also be a nice touch.

Thanks for your work.

On Thu, Jul 19, 2001 at 09:48:02PM +0200, Hans-Martin Mosner wrote:
> Hello,
> since I think that the Squeak debuger misses some very important
> features, I started to implement them. The attached changeset is my
> first shot at the issue; it implement the following features:
> 
> 1. Debugger inspector panes are updated on every step. (that was an easy
> one)
> 2. PC highlighting is improved for loops, blocks, variable assignments.
> No more highlighting of the instruction after the loop block
> 3. Fast step method executes the message using perform:, not by
> simulation. Mucho mucho quicker!
> 4. Exceptions caught within stepped methods are properly displayed in
> the debugger. No more 'Cant simulate halt.  Proceed to bypass it.'
> 5. nonlocal returns are caught.
> 
> There are almost certainly bugs in my code; I did not have much time for
> testing and so rely on you to find them :-) I have thought about writing
> unit test code, but for the most tricky aspects I have difficulties
> setting up test cases in my mind, let alone in code...
> 
> Some more things I would like to do are:
> - a 'reset' menu function which resets the selected context, without
> proceeding immediately.
> - a 'skip to caret' menu function which steps until the pc is just
> before the selected point in the method.
> - true breakpoints which can be added and removed without requiring
> recompilation, and without losing existing context's state.
> 
> However, these will require some more time. If you have any additional
> suggestions, please let us discuss them here on the list.
> 
> Cheers,
> Hans-Martin
> 
> Note that the methods in the changeset are carefully arranged not to
> break on file-in. If you just file out the changeset, the resulting file
> will almost certainly not work. That's what one deserves for messing
> with the Parser...


Content-Description: Card for Hans-Martin Mosner





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