I agree with Ed Jaffe that 'Attitude has a lot to do with it.' I think, however, that attitudes are is often reflections of skills and experiences. Those who 1) have learned to read dumps and 2) have had the habit of reading them reinforced by successes in extracting valuable diagnostic information from them are very likely to use them. Others are likely to try to avoid using them.
Dump reading is often, of course, premature. I have seen programmers studying dumps in situations in which brief examination of their source programs by someone else quickly disclosed their errors. EJ's second point, that some programmers write more reliable routines than others, is another important one, but I will leave its discussion for another day. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
