Re: duplicated code in gdb and gdbserver

[Paul Koning <paul_koning@dell.com>]

On Jan 12, 2011, at 12:54 PM, Doug Evans wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 9:33 AM, Doug Evans <dje@google.com> wrote:
>> I think the remote protocol itself is getting old.
>> In days of multiple threads, inferiors, and architectures, plus an
>> expanding feature set, ISTM IWBN to start over.
> 
> Blech, sorry for the follow-up.
> I should add that these days packet size is often far less of an issue
> than latency.

I strongly disagree with that claim.

While the remote protocol often runs across TCP connections on LANs, it also often runs over UART ports, at speeds of 9600 baud or so.  Packet size is absolutely a very serious issue here.

For example, I ended up optimizing a kernel gdb stub for MIPS to generate T messages (extended stop messages, with a few registers included) to avoid the expense of the large "g" packet.  For that matter, I've found it very much worth while to implement the run-length encoding option in the protocol.

Latency too matters, but this is one of those protocols where saving bytes is a major consideration.

	paul