Open Source Theory - GDB Sucks
I have a theory that Open Source software is so good and stable compared to Windows software because Open Source debuggers suck.
This means that Open Source developers have to program defensively whereas Windows developers will rely on catching and easily debugging the bugs in the debugger.
Thoughts?
Categories:
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Open Source Theory - GDB Sucks.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.steve-lacey.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-bar.cgi/1010
6 Comments
Leave a comment
About Me
Steve Lacey, software developer at Google, British, married to the lurvely Nabila, dad to the wonderful Julian and Jasmine. Living in Kirkland (near Seattle), WA.
steve@steve-lacey.com
+1 (425) 214-4716
Syndication
Popular Posts
Recent Entries
Recent Podcasts
- A Brit Abroad - April 16, 2006
- G'Day World!
- A Brit Abroad - November 26, 2005
- A Brit Abroad - October 13, 2005
- A Brit Abroad - September 20, 2005
- The First Britcaster Podcaster
- BritPack number 4 is alive!
- A Brit Abroad - August 15, 2005
- A Brit Abroad - July 13, 2005
- The BritPack #2 - The Very Best Of British Podcasting
- Subscribe...
Monthly Archives
- January 2010 (1)
- December 2009 (1)
- November 2009 (2)
- October 2009 (2)
- September 2009 (1)
- August 2009 (1)
- July 2009 (3)
- June 2009 (2)
- May 2009 (2)
- March 2009 (4)
- January 2009 (3)
- December 2008 (5)
- November 2008 (2)
- October 2008 (2)
- September 2008 (6)
- August 2008 (3)
- July 2008 (6)
- June 2008 (4)
- May 2008 (12)
- April 2008 (16)
- March 2008 (4)
- February 2008 (7)
- January 2008 (11)
- December 2007 (8)
- November 2007 (15)
- October 2007 (8)
- September 2007 (8)
- August 2007 (19)
- July 2007 (9)
- June 2007 (10)
- May 2007 (13)
- April 2007 (11)
- March 2007 (13)
- February 2007 (13)
- January 2007 (19)
- December 2006 (18)
- November 2006 (15)
- October 2006 (15)
- September 2006 (10)
- August 2006 (18)
- July 2006 (24)
- June 2006 (23)
- May 2006 (21)
- April 2006 (23)
- March 2006 (18)
- February 2006 (25)
- January 2006 (36)
- December 2005 (37)
- November 2005 (34)
- October 2005 (37)
- September 2005 (39)
- August 2005 (28)
- July 2005 (33)
- June 2005 (42)
- May 2005 (22)
- April 2005 (40)
- March 2005 (31)
- February 2005 (19)
- January 2005 (25)
- December 2004 (16)
- November 2004 (18)
- October 2004 (26)
- September 2004 (20)
- August 2004 (20)
- July 2004 (23)
- May 2003 (1)
- March 2003 (1)
- February 2003 (2)
- January 2003 (2)
- December 2002 (4)
- September 2002 (4)
- August 2002 (3)
- February 2002 (1)
- January 2002 (9)
- November 2001 (1)
- October 2001 (14)
Categories
Search
About this Entry
This page contains a single entry by Steve published on May 22, 2007 8:44 PM.
It's Almost Like He Waited was the previous entry in this blog.
Insane Kirkland Annexation Behaviour? is the next entry in this blog.
Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.
Statsorama
- 1044 posts
- 1327 comments
4 words: On Error Resume Next
What about Windows open-source software? :-)
Hi,
I'm not a developer, and although I can programme few things, I'll post a as a user point of view.
For us (users) it does not matter how good your debuggers are, or how defensively you write your code. What matters is - how it works!
So if it does - it's a good piece of sw, if it doesn't then it's not.
Where I think the big companies (like MS which I am a fan of) have a problem is because they are the "standard" and they need to care about backwards compatibility, universal use etc.
In other words, if you write a very fast and stable 100kB application that does one thing (and does it well), it is something different than having a 10MB app doing the same thing plus about 100 others.
As for OSes, put linux on 90% of all PCs worldwide, add custom made drivers and endless hw and sw configurations, and we'll have the baby crashing all the time (just like they thought opera or mozilla were safer then explorer - until they got more users).
Cheers,
B.
I think its the coffee. Actually its a combination of the theory of relativity and the current brew in the pot.
Microsoft know this. However there is no money in it for them so keep it a secret.
Open source can have input from anywhere. Thinkers outside the box are not constricted by protocol and bureaucracy....and they have to make it work for them.
ergo (whatever that means)it gets done the old fashioned way...line by line.
(did I spell bureaucracy right?)..who cares.
Im amazed anything works...and Im even more amazed it works so well on millions of machines.
Maybe we should all drink tea....
hmmm
I can definitely agree with "gdb sucks" part.
In my experience though, whenever I need to do some serious debugging, I just go to visual studio. Instead of spending much more time in xcode's "debugger" for example.
Not sure if I agree with the premise of your question. All software sucks and OSS doesn't suck any less than Windows in general in my experience. Some apps are robust, some not so much.
So, I'd like to rephrase your observation as: Shouldn't Windows software suck way less than OSS given that they have much better debuggers over there?
And now the answer becomes clear. Most Windows developers (or developers period) don't have the debugging skills to leverage a powerful debugger The extra goodness goes to waste and thus the playing field is leveled through ignorance. LOL!
Gdb is not so bad if you run it under VisualStudio ;-)
Kind regards,
WinGDB team