| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 118.1 | Ready for review | SUPER::ROUNDS | Kristin Rounds | Fri Nov 08 1991 12:00 | 22 |
| The new debugger chapter for "VMS Skills for Programmers" (formerly
"VMS for Programmers I") is ready for review:
SUPER::ES$REVIEW:[PROGRAMMER]DEBUGGER.PS
I am concerned that it is too long (41 pages, plus a short Appendix),
and would appreciate your opinions about its length. If it needs to
be trimmed down, what do you think should go?
I will start working on the lab exercises next week. I plan to provide
a simple program in several languages (BASIC, C, COBOL, FORTRAN, Macro,
and Pascal), in two versions: one that works and one that has a bug.
Students can use the veresion that works to get comfortable with debugger
features, and then try their hand at the version with the bug. Your
suggestions are most welcome!
Please send review comments to me or post them here by Wednesday,
November 20th.
Thanks in advance for your help...
Kristin
|
| 118.2 | Eminently teachable - could cut a few pages | MINNIE::SHONE | Keith Shone @RKA 830-4074 | Wed Nov 13 1991 08:26 | 43 |
| I'm teaching VAX and PDP FORTRAN this week (EY-A751E) and this has
given me an opportunity to do one of my after hours overviews on the
VMS Debugger.
These sessions are not covered by any handout or other printed materials
but I try to make the session flow logically.
My observations this time showed the following topics discussed in the
hour long session:
Compiling and linking for Debug
Switching into screen mode
Stepping through statements
EXAMINE
DEPOSIT
Setting logging
Displaying REG (and DISPLAY/REMOVE REG)
Displaying INST (and DISPLAY/REMOVE INST)
MOVE /LEFT:5 REG (or similar display)
SET WATCH WHEN .... DO ....
SET BREAK WHEN .... DO ....
DISPLAY /MARK_CHANGE display-name AT S45 DO ....
Define an initialization file
In these materials I found much that was useful and informative.
To reduce some of the bulk I felt that pages 1-7 through 1-11 could be
omitted for my presentations. HELP is HELP is HELP so I don't think
that needs a section.
I could teach from these materials with ease, using a demo program with
a good selection of variables - strings, arrays, loops etc.
Page 1-17a last word of instructor notes refers to "this course" ?
Page 1-25 the formatting in the boxed example has gone adrift!
On the subject of log files: need to be careful when submitting a log
file to a new session - it may simply generate a new log file and no
output appears.
Finally on page 1-38 if we mention SPAWN should we mention ATTACH?
Apologies for the less than fluent response. The network link from
Manchester (England) is reminiscent of bush telegraph!
|
| 118.3 | Debugger Input | DLO10::TARLING | | Wed Nov 13 1991 09:49 | 6 |
|
I pretty much agree with 118.2. Cutting some from the help
section would be a logical choice. It is very usable.
Arnold.
|
| 118.4 | ...oh and just a few more points | MINNIE::SHONE | Keith Shone @RKA 830-4074 | Thu Nov 14 1991 07:58 | 20 |
| Some more thoughts/observations - network is back to full speed...
I suggested that pages 1-7 through 1-11 could be cut. There is an error
on page 1-10 in the last line. It suggests PF1 is the BLUE key but it's
PF4. (Just in case it is used in the final version).
The figure on page 1-13 (Figure 1-3) doesn't match the commands issued.
Could sample displays be actual screens? (I appreciate there are
difficulties with displays using reverse video effects!)
Something not in the text but a potential hole during demos - take care
not to issue STEP/INTO on a system or language run-time routine.
During my demo a couple of evenings ago I showed this command on a FORTRAN
WRITE statement - deliberately. (For those who haven't tried it I'll
leave them to discover...).
Should we have a brief paragraph or screen to mention/show the
DECwindows de-luxe interface to the debugger?
I haven't changed my original view of the materials - they're good.
|
| 118.5 | A reply from D.C. | TEACH::HENRY | Pam Henry | Thu Nov 14 1991 08:30 | 39 |
|
After reading the DEBUGGER material the following are my
comments:
Page 1-8 - SCROLL/UP:4 is a poor example of a debugger command
since it is rarely used. A better example might be
EXAMINE/HEX or one of the more commonly used commands.
Page 1-10 - The last line should read "press PF4 key"
Page 1-12 - "A picture is worth 1000 words". Take out the entire
explanation of windows and displays. Something that
is very simple is so overstated it makes no sense.
The picture on page 1-13 is sufficient to explain
screen mode.
Page 1-24a - Why are we only giving the examine qualifiers on
the Instructor Notes page? This information needs to
be provided to the student instead of just saying the
qualifiers are used to "display variables in a data
type of your choice". This is the first place I have
seen where we are giving too little information instead
of too much.
Page 1-25 - When you "DBG> EXAMINE STRING" the string 'hello' is
returned in single quotes.
Page 1-27 - Same as above for 'HI'
General Comments
----------------
There is no mention of tracepoints in this module. Tracepoints can
be helpful when you seem to be going through sections of code at
unpredictable times. In my 10 years of programming I used this
feature quite a bit.
|
| 118.6 | reviewing debugger material | NWGEDU::AARTSEN | | Thu Dec 05 1991 02:49 | 35 |
| Hello debuggers,
I read the proposal of a new chapter about the debugger for the SYSNET 1
course. In Holland I have some experience with a two day's course about
programming tools on VMS which is a course following the Utilities and
Commands I course. In this course I spend about 1 hour time at the Debugger.
Half an hour of this is doing some lab exercises.
Taking into account that this is a first week's course for VMS programmers,
my opinion about the proposal is that we are telling TOO MUCH. My proposal is to
teach :
- what is the debugger, what do we use it for
- how to invoke the debugger
- some commands with which you can do most of the work :
SET MODE SCREEN (don't talk about other modes)
STEP
EXAMINE (don't talk about /hex /ascii)
EVALUATE
DEPOSIT
GO
SET BREAK %LINE (explain what break-, trace- and watchpoints are,
SET TRACE %LINE how to establish, show and cancel them)
SET WATCH var
(in the material I use a table for this commands)
- debugger initialization file
Sorry for the large material ( I myself learned something, despite of having
experience with it for a couple of years), but I really think it is too big
for the first week.
Greetings,
Bart Aartsen
|
| 118.7 | Chapter has been trimmed down | HARDY::ROUNDS | Kristin Rounds | Fri Dec 06 1991 10:38 | 9 |
| Thanks for your suggestions, Bart. That's pretty much what is
in the final version of the chapter. I cut it down quite a bit,
based on the comments I received during the review period.
The revised "VMS for Programmers" course is currently in the final
stage of production, and should be submitted to the funders next
Friday (12/13). I'll post a note when that happens.
Kristin
|