Xcode debugger quality
Xcode debugger quality
- Subject: Xcode debugger quality
- From: Simon Wilson <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:39:36 +0200
Bob Hansen wrote:
> I beg to differ about the quality of Xcode
I second Bob here: my experience with Xcode 3 thus far has been mixed.
Some aspects are excellent: both the new IB and Instruments are
fantastic for example.
The debugger isn't exactly the jewel in Apple's crown, however.
- It seems incapable of displaying variables correctly, often
complaining that pointers are out of scope.
- The variable view often can't even display the values of NSString
objects necessitating the use of NSLog.
- Every so often the debugger will resolutely insist on stepping into
the disassembly code for the ObjC runtime's dispatch code. From that
point on, debugging my Cocoa application is impossible. The only way
to solve this seems to be a) to use DWARF in the project and all its
dependencies and b) to clean and re-build my entire project. My re-
build patience will often be rewarded with a couple of hours/days of
functional debugging. On other occasions the debugger will start
misbehaving again 10 minutes later.
As a result, debugging has become a pretty futile exercise and I tend
to avoid it when not absolutely necessary, instead preferring the
stone-age technique of liberally sprinkling NSLog calls throughout my
code. It may be low-tech, but at least it's reliable.
As much as Instruments has helped improve the quality of my code, the
debugger seems to conspire to offset these benefits by making
debugging as difficult as possible!
And I don't seem to be alone. This list is full of messages from
people that can't get the debugger to stop at their break-points or
who can't single-step through their code.
2.4 wasn't much better either. The debugger would randomly hang while
single-stepping requiring a re-start.
I implore Apple to shore up the quality of its debugger as soon as
possible. It's 7 months now since Xcode 3 was released and I'm not
aware of a 3.0.1 release that fixes the most severe issues we're
having. 3.1's doing the rounds with the iPhone SDK but I don't want to
waste my time beta testing it for Apple and don't want to 'go dark'
under NDA in the hope that these issues have been fixed in 3.1.
Am I alone in my frustration with the debugger? Are others out there
also experiencing the same issues?
Regards,
Simon Wilson
On Apr 30, 2008, at 15:24:31, Bob Hansen wrote:
I beg to differ about the quality of Xcode
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