Re: [maint] The GDB maintenance process

Andrew Cagney
2003-02-19T16:14:23Z

> ac131313@redhat.com (Andrew Cagney) writes:
>
>> > Some noticeable differences between these two models:
>> > - In the GCC model, more people are able/likely to check in patches which
>> > break things.
>> > - But in the GCC model, more people are able/likely to check in patches to
>> > fix it afterwards.
>
>>
>> (ROFL.)
>>
>> The GCC model involves a number of development phases and the above
>> comments would only relate to one of those phases. At other times
>> increasingly strict controls are placed on what can be
>> committed/approved. The GCC group spend a significant (out of
>> control?) amount of their time trying to re-stablize GCC for their
>> releases.
>>
>> For GDB, on the other hand, interesting development can and does get
>> approved/committed at any time. GDB snaps are of such quality that we
>> can confidently refer someone to current sources for fixes (except
>> when I have a bad day like today :-). Further, instead of using
>> official releases (and as you yourself have done) arbitrary snaps can
>> even make their way into a distro.
>
>
> The problem is, being that stable has a cost associated with it. GCC
> pays that cost at certain parts in their cycle; we pay that cost all
> the time, every day.

GDB is less stable then you might think. Right now while both:

- interps
- frame

are causing problems they are not getting in the way of DavidC's dwarf2
stuff (gee wiz, both my doing :-/). GDB always builds, gdb always
`break main; run'. Is that too much to ask?

The problem with GDB's stability is that allows people to quickly forget:

- what it is like with out it
- how much gain there is from it
- how relatively small the pain
- how much more expensive it is to have to re-do something later
- how, with a bit of peer revew, problematic code could have been done
right the first time (and how much that fallout costs).

Andrew