A nice feature about variable inspection would be a point-and-click variable
inspection from the source window: point the mouse over the variable and click to get
immediate value in a pop-up window (e.g. like ediff) which stays on the side, or in
the debugger output window.
Another thing would be to easily inspect static variables that are out-of-scope. For
example class A has some static variables, and while executing code in B.foo() I wou
like to make sure that my statics in A have been correctly initialized.
Another one [of my dreams] would be to be able to walk the java heap, maybe from the
GC root object (with some king of tree similiar to the speedbar) to be able to inspect
the values of fields from all the JVM (similar to a Heap browser such as JProbe but
with the variable values available for inspection).
I don't know if the JDI architecture would allow it, but being able to assign new
variable values for objects or at least primitive types would also be great
Being able to move back/forth the Java PC in the same class (ie. the current point of
execution), without reverting the JVM/objects state (which would technically be very
difficult I guess), but simply jumping to some other line (e.g. when a bug is detected
by the programmer at debug time).
DDD provides also a nice feature: recording of lines traversed and the values
displayed in the automatic display (or in some preselected variables) in order to be
able to replay them over-and-over (without actually executing the code) later on to
focus on some specific part of the program without having to rexecute the code. This
is particularly interesting when it's difficult to reproduce the bug and overwhelming
to watch the different aspects of the program at the same time: amny objects and
current threads (e.g. synchronization, time-outs ....)
Guillaume.
