On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Apparently, if you follow the arguments, not having a kernel debugger
> leads to various maladies:
> - you crash when something goes wrong, and you fsck and it takes forever
> and you get frustrated.
> - people have given up on Linux kernel programming because it's too hard
> and too time-consuming
> - it takes longer to create new features.
>
> And nobody has explained to me why these are _bad_ things.
There are those, but there are others, most of which are so obvious[1]
we're not mentioning them, assuming you're familiar with them too. I
usually eschew debuggers as well, but I'm beginning to suspect that you've
spent so much of your programming life immersed in the kernel that you
haven't used a debugger enough to know what sorts of things it's actually
good for. Not all the world's a nail, but there are times when the bigger
hammer approach is the right one.
One of these days you should give revision control a try too. Not to
mention bug tracking. :P
[1] eg I've found many a compiler bug in 5 minutes of single stepping that
days of eyeballing source and adding printfs failed to discover.
--
"Love the dolphins," she advised him. "Write by W.A.S.T.E.."
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