Re: Preparing for the GDB 5.0 / GDB 2000 / GDB2k release

[Daniel Berlin <dan at cgsoftware dot com>]

Kevin Hendricks <khendricks@ivey.uwo.ca> writes:

> Hi,
> 
> > What you are really saying is that it's better to put hacks and crap in 
> > the tree, and hope someone comes along and does it right, removing the 
> > hack, while making it even more a living hell for everyone else to 
> > understand.
> 
> Why is eveything "not perfect" considered a hack or crap?  I for one don't
> think Kevin Buettner's patch is a hack or crap at all. Please stop equating
> what we want to see added with crap.

We must have our wires crossed.
I wasn't referring to Kevin's patch when i said crap. Sorry for the
misunderstanding.

> 
> > See, here is your fatal mistake.
> > You are making the assumption that users will clean it up, make it work, 
> > and improve it.
> > While this may be true in other projects, it's not really true in GDB's 
> > case.
> 
> I think your attitude here is just wrong (and frankly part of the whole gdb
> problem).  You obviously think you have cornered the market on some unique
> programming skill. 
No, I've just had the unfortunate experience of seeming to be the only
one who hacks on gdb for my platform (notice i said nothing about
using, there are plenty of users), among with many other experiences,
and most of the people i know share these experiences (with their own
particular projects, mainly driver authors).

> This is simply not true.   Users can and will help.   I would
> help (I was part of Blackdown's jdk porting team until recent events forced me
> to move on), Franz would help (he is *the* gcc person for ppc and without his
> work with them we (ppc) would still be in the dark ages, Gary Thomas would help
> (he is really the father of the whole linux ppc movement and is single handedly
> responsible for much of the code that ppc uses), etc.  We just need something
> to start playing with.  As it stands, we can't even submit official bug
> reports.   

> 
> Please stop thinking that gdb is so complex that only a maintainer can help
> (seen the inside of many multi-threaded virtual machines latesly?). 
Strangely enough, I have, having done the original port of kaffe (No
WAT) to BeOS before the person who did it now. Not as hairy as sun's,
i would imagine (I've never looked at their code).
It seems only the maintainers want to help (ppc-linux people like you
excluded, sorry if i put you in the wrong platform group, it's late :P)


> Sure we
> won't be as good as you, we won't be as productive as you, but we (and others)
> really can help. I think we are proof of that.  Unfortunately when I submitted 
> the original ppc patch (based on Kevin Buettner work) back around 4.16 or
> earlier,  I just never dreamed it would take this long to get anything there
> done with it.  
> 
> Perhaps cygnus plays too large a role in tool development.  Perhaps open source
> tools should not be tied so closely to any one company.  Too many conflicts of
> interest?  Too many paying customers versus the rest of us?  I just don't know.
> 
> But whatever the outcome, please stop assuming that all "users" are
idiots. 
Never said that, never would.
Believe me, i'd be more than happy to be proven wrong, and to have
tons of users submit patches for all areas of GDB.
I'm just not holding my breath waiting for it to happen, no matter
what we do.
Yet I'm always hoping users will help.
But i guess i've just been involved in projects lately where they
don't. Fer instance, I've recently turned over maintenance of two drivers i wrote (both for
sound cards on BeOS.) because i simply don't have the time, and the
only reports i get are "this doesn't work on my computer", and when i
try to follow up, get nothing. It's not for lack of users, either. The
download stats show when i release a new version, it gets downloaded
~5000 times (Goes up a little with each release, new users i assume).
None were willing to help in any way, shape or form. 
Well, you get the idea, no point in me rambling on.
> This is simply not the case and results in much of the bad or negative
> "mindset" I have seen in the gdb lists and tried to point out to Stan.

Like i said, unfortunately, my viewpoint comes from too many
experiences lately telling me it's true. I'd be glad to be wrong about
this.
> 
> Thanks for responding to my post. 

And thank you for responding to mine.
>  I am not sure we will ever agree on how
> things should be done but we are talking about it which is more than has been
> done of late.

Right.
Hopefully this email won't get too screwed by my new mailer (And
hopefully i have all my gnus settings right)
> 
> Take care,
> 
> Kevin