[HN Gopher] Pleasant debugging with GDB and DDD
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Pleasant debugging with GDB and DDD
Author : signa11
Score : 69 points
Date : 2022-07-17 11:17 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (begriffs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (begriffs.com)
| flohofwoe wrote:
| I'm surprised at the article date (today, 17-Jul-2022). From the
| topic and content I would have expected that the article is at
| least 15 years old. If you want a "just works" debugging
| experience on Linux, try QtCreator, or VSCode with the CodeLLDB
| extension (an lldb frontend) or the Microsoft C/C++ extension
| (which provides a debugger frontend for gdb, lddb or the MSVC
| debugger).
|
| The main downside of both VSCode extensions is the very limited
| data view panel (this is indeed an area where DDD was, and still
| is revolutionary), but unfortunately the whole are of user
| friendly debugging solutions is in stagnation or even regressing
| :/
| tovej wrote:
| VSCode is much more than just a debugger, it is a whole
| environment. It doesn't really feel suitable if you are using a
| regular Linux development environment.
| tkuraku wrote:
| Seems pretty suitable to me. It is a great option.
| tovej wrote:
| I'm not saying it's a bad editor, but that it is a rather
| odd fit with a typical vim or emacs flow. If you're using
| VScode to debug, you are probably using it as your editor
| as well.
| snarfy wrote:
| What the hell does 'vim or emacs flow' have to do with
| debugging?
| synergy20 wrote:
| DDD is really archaic, the UI is very much out of date and the
| fonts are hard(or impossible) to change,etc. It's for the last
| century. Still there is no decent alternative as of today.
|
| I mainly use gdb -tui these days, with some vscode+gdb(or, is
| it lldb?), both worked OK for me, but neither is as complete as
| DDD.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Which kind of speaks wonders how well the community is aware
| of good debugging tools, or willing to contribute to improve
| them, versus the commercial OSes.
| Groxx wrote:
| While I completely agree with debugging UX worsening (and it
| boggles my mind), replaying debuggers are better than ever!
| https://rr-project.org/
| khuey wrote:
| <shameless plug>If you like rr and want a better UX try out
| https://pernos.co/ </shameless plug>
| Groxx wrote:
| I'm always glad to see more :) Replay-based debugging is
| _marvelous_. There seems to have been a minor explosion in
| them, around when rr came out / became more widely known
| (not sure if it's cause, effect, or correlation due to
| hardware advances tho).
| inetknght wrote:
| > _If you want a "just works" debugging experience on Linux,
| try QtCreator, or VSCode with the CodeLLDB extension (an lldb
| frontend)_
|
| I can't tell you how many times QtCreator's debugging interface
| got stuck or didn't understand GDB. It's very frustrating. I'd
| rather use GDB directly instead. The only thing missing in GDB
| is an easy way to turn pretty printers on and off (they get in
| the way of looking at internals and don't always see past
| pointers especially smart pointers)
|
| VSCode's debugging interface is... simple. I haven't used it
| much from trauma of using QtCreator's. Is it really decent?
|
| > _unfortunately the whole are of user friendly debugging
| solutions is in stagnation or even regressing_
|
| Sadly, I fully agree with the statement.
| jmrm wrote:
| I personally use the GDB with GDB Dashboard, disabling the
| assembly and the registers, but I think I will try DDD in the
| future :-)
|
| One important thing to mention is how well shown is GDB
| scripting. I haven't used it or found out how to use it, but I
| save this article just in case I need it. Props to the writer.
| a-dub wrote:
| i haven't seen or heard of DDD in many years, i always just
| thought it was a pretty front end for gdb...
|
| but i never knew it had plotting support, holy moly! my absolute
| favorite way to debug very complex things is to visualize them.
| in a past life while debugging some fairly complex distributed
| systems issues i found myself yearning for plotting capabilities
| in my debugger, which were nary to be found.
|
| as one gets older, it can be become harder to reason about lists
| of numbers in a terminal. that's what plots are made for, that's
| what plots solve. three cheers for computers that can plot!
| zonovar wrote:
| What's wrong with people still using DDD in 2022?
| [deleted]
| teddyh wrote:
| Instead of DDD, I would suggest using the graphical Emacs
| interface to GDB.
|
| https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/images/gdb.png
|
| (Image taken from the Emacs Tour:
| https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/)
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