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HP Releases gdb-derived Debugger
Lumpish Scholar writes "Rather than only enhance their
proprietary debugger(s), Hewlett-Packard has started distributing "wdb" ("Wildebeest"),
an enhanced (and still free / Open Source, naturally) version
of the GNU debugger that supports HP's C, C++, and Fortran
compilers under HP-UX. They're not just giving it away; they're
supporting it for their customers with compiler support.
"
I had the misfortune of doing some development on an HP-UX workstation for a couple of months using HP's standard debugger (forget what it was called - adb? adx?). That thing sucked rocks. gdb rules and for those who develop under HP-UX, I am sure this is welcome news.
XEmacs and GDB are my two best friends. :)
I thought it was pretty apparent that the original poster was referring to public perception associated with one term or the other. The next sentence, that you missed quoting was: "Almost everybody agrees on that, and you can't change their mind."
The programs being described here are as buggy, unsupported
Whether to use one term or the other is kind of a question of integrity vs. marketing. It's like the Hacker vs. Cracker argument. Some say it's easier to just use a different term when a word is co-opted. Some say it's worth fighting for (in other words, winning the meaning of the word back for yourself)
FSF will prolly not accept HP's contribution because HP has not donated the code back to FSF. What a crock, one would think the FSF would have learned the importance of Open Development (TM) from Open Source (TM) projects like Linux (TM).
I have compiled & installed GNU devel tools at HP-UX, Solaris and AIX - HP-UX gev me the leat problems (once I had GCC running, that is). HP-UX - the champ of the commercial Unices !
They're not just giving it away; they're supporting it for their customers with compiler support. What does this mean?
It means if you've paid for a license to use HP's compilers, they'll give you support for wdb too.
In the proprietary UNIX world, the license for the OS typically does not include a license for the compilers (or at least for useful versions of the compilers.) Those are sold separately.
I used WDB 0.75 on HP-UX a year ago. It is their new strategic source level debugger.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
ddd is pretty but I prefer debuggers that crash less frequently than my program (it's the reason I've sworn off Windows programming unless I'm getting paid. :-) )
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
The One True Debugger (or meta-debugger, if you prefer; or debugger GUI) is still DDD.
;-)
If wdb runs underneath DDD (like gdb, pdb, pydb, jdb, and dbx do) then it rules. If not, it sucks. End of story.
Seriously though, DDD is the greatest programming tool ever created. Well, it's tied with XEmacs. Anyone who bags on *nix/*BSD for having crappy IDEs hasn't used these two tools properly.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
Taking into account that this wdb change is indeed at least a year old by now, I wonder whether they have already decided about their next strategic debugger...
--
Linux user since early January 1992.
it is for noone to say for sure, but yes.
Do you know if this happen with 0.87.8?
I am getting tired of seeing the editor refer to free software as Open Source/free or free-OSS or some similar permution. Decorating the term "free software" with other gratutous modifiers is tedious and concusing. Which is is slashdot? Free Software or Open Source?
Why do you think the changes were not assigned
to the FSF (or to Cygnus, which would give them
the right to give them to the FSF)? It seems
unlikely that Cygnus would take the code and
include it in the snapshots, if it couldn't be
shipped as part of the FSF release.
Has there been some announcement to that effect?
Yes it does work with DDD.
I like the speed of the --tui mode, but I do
occasionally use with with DDD on top.
My guess is that those who use this debugger
along with other development software from HP
will get support for the debugger also as
part of the support for the other stuff.
SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE SoftICE
This came up on the HPUX-DEVTOOLS mailing list. HP will not support DDD, or the emacs interface wrapper around gdb/wdb. On the other hand, the HP developers use both interfaces, and will be the first to be disappointed if they break.
The DDD folks have deprecated their support of xdb, HP's older debugger.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Crash? Sure, it's stable (of course thanks in no small part to higher quality workstation hardware).
But HP-sUX is full of security holes...
I hate this bickering about terms. However, instead of "Free Software", how about "Freed Software".
Regards
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/lang/tools/WDB
has a registration-free download area.
later support WDB just like any GDB flavour.
I have not used WDB and DDD so far. But there
have been no WDB-related complaints so far
on the DDD mailing lists, so WDB and DDD seem
to work just fine.
No comments on WDB 1.0 yet, but there
is no reason this new release should
not work too.
I've locked the X display at least 30 times. I have actually crashed the machine once.
I was looking at the download page, and it seems you have to register to download it from HP's site.
This seems a little bit fishy.
OTOH, I suppose they can ask for anything they want for WDB -- once one person has a copy, he can do anything with it he wishes.
It's been available with HP's compilers since 11.0 came out, circa Nov. 97... no new news here.
it is for noone to say for sure yes? Do you know if this happen with Lesstif 0.87.9 sources?
it is offensive to call gnu projects open source
They're not just giving it away; they're supporting it for their customers with compiler support.
What does this mean?
That is just the way it is. Free software is
buggy, unsupported, binary crap. Almost everybody
agrees on that, and you can't change their mind.
You _could_ convince them that Open Source gives
the right to modify the software.
I will, however, register my vote for "Free Software" when it is necesary to choose.
It means if you run HPUX and their C compiler, and have a problem with their version of the GNU debugger, they'll support it, instead of saying "It's not supported."
This is probably a major trend. The well established vendors offering Open source and propriatary at the same time. This is a real opportunity for GNU etc to win on technical merits
Help fight continental drift.
Actually, HP-UX sucks period. Nothing compiles for it without major tweaking. Still, I prefer it over windows and it is fairly stable.
HP have donated the source and testsuites for
wdb back to the FSF. Current gdb snapshots
(unstable) contain the Wildebeest code.
wdb is shipped with HP-UX 11 and available for
download for HP-UX 10.20
See the DDD FAQ for a discussion of DDD's stability. Basically, DDD in itself is very stable, but relies on a large number of (possibly unstable) components. LessTif's stability is at a tolerable level (and increasing); if your mileage varies, feel free to use a DDD binary linked with OSF/Motif.
I actually prefer running gdb under emacs than DDD as that provides roughly the same abilities and means I get decent keybindings and don't have to deal with DDD's clunkiness.
I don't understand what people like about GUI debuggers. Sure, you can learn to use them quickly, but they're big and slow and awkward.
IHMO, YMMV, etc.
The biggest problem with *nix/*BSD is the "used properly" factor. In Windows, or even the old DOS IDEs all you had to do was install one piece of software (usually with a simple command like "install" or "setup") and figuring out how to use it is trivial. In *nix/*BSD you have to read reams of documentation to figure out what software you need to install (DDD, XEmacs, gdb, Lestif, maybe gtk or qt, etc) then you have to figure out how to use them all together based on their individual documentation. I've never seen a comprehensive step by step guide to setting up and "properly using" a Linux development environment.
If a person with no programming experience wants to learn to program, Linux just isn't a good choice. It'll take them weeks of reading documentation just to get their computer setup and even then they won't be sure if they are using the tools "properly". With Windows, a quick trip to the software store in the morning will have them writing code in a "properly" configured programming environment by the end of the day.