Re: [RFA] Remote UDP support

Jim Blandy
2002-05-10T03:51:42Z

Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com> writes:
> > On Thu, May 09, 2002 at 05:18:02PM -0400, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> >
> >> >Andrew, would you be satisfied with a warning in the manual and a
> >> >warning in 'help target remote'?
> >
> >> No. I think it need to be in the users face. I don't think GDB
> >> should silently let the user to use a broken mechanism.
> > I really don't agree, but your call. Could I at least persuade you
> > down to a one-line warning and no confirmation query?
> > Requiring a separate confirmation just seems like a bad interface
> > decision.
>
> It is relative. Adding a feature to GDB that will make GDB unreliable
> and then failing to alert the user of the consequences is, I think, a
> worse decision. The user is no longer able to depend on the debuger -
> something critically important for someone debugging an embedded
> application.
>
> Can you please update the patch to include a mechanism for querying
> the user (just the first time) to confirm that they know and
> understand that the mechanism is unreliable (including a brief
> statement of known failure states).

I really disagree with this. It's fine to print a one-line warning
--- something that doesn't interrupt the user's train of thought. But
people aren't going to type "target remote udp:..." by accident.

Whenever I've said, "UDP isn't reliable!", nobody has ever reacted
with shock --- "You're kidding! It isn't?" They always say, "Yes, I
know, and I don't care."