Op Thu, 21 Feb 2008, schreef Helmut Hartl:
Hi, When using Freepascal for various projects, tests and platforms, i tried to identify what makes productivity bottlenecks for me and my team. We currently mainly do daemon console apps with Delphi and Lazarus as IDE for linux, arm projects on NLSU2, and several WinCE Tests also performed well. One of the main problems we face is the debugger gdb, wich makes us less productive. (unhandy, no real good pascal support)
You are right, debugging is the weak point of FPC and this will not improve as long as we are using gdb.
So i am thinking about a freepascal debugger written in freepascal, taking advantage of the freepascal code/structures itself. Features should include a clean interface, remote debugging ability via net/udp (thinking about a rdp/vnc like server to control the debugger) and or serial console and the ability to integrate it with a nice gui. (and other Features like Delphi's debugger). The advantage i see is that it should be buildable with fpc only, thus working on all supported platforms from scratch, maybe even suitable for mini OS Developments for embedded devices.
One platform that would benefit is Win64. Debugging is currently not possible on Win64, because no gdb or even a GNU compiler exists for Win64.
I am currently trying to study feasibility of such a project, and making myself familiar with debugging techniques and the DWARF(3) format. I have some general questions to the fpc team: What do you think about the idea ?
This discussion takes place in the fpc team from to time. It is clear we will need our own debugger, even though not everyone likes to maintain a debugger for its platform.
The FPC coders have to do lists to keep them busy until well in the next decade. If you want to write a debugger, I consider that welcome.
Daniël
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