Re: Deprecate dwarf and mdebug support, delete nlm?

[Daniel Berlin <dberlin@dberlin.org>]

On Monday, May 5, 2003, at 01:30  PM, Andrew Cagney wrote:

>> I don't think its a fair measure to equate number of  patches with 
>> value.
>
> The number of patches does at least hint at the level of activity.  As 
> for value, part of a value judgment is determining the cost.
>
>> I've still got users who are using commercial compilers that emit 
>> dwarf1 and
>> it would be a great loss to these users if dwarf1 went away.
>
> Significant structural change, such as adding support for multiple 
> address spaces, moves more rapidly when there are fewer debug readers 
> to content with.

I think the real problem isn't the number of debug readers, but in the 
particular implementations of these two debug readers.  IE The problem 
with these two debug readers is precisely that *because* nobody has 
ever maintained or updated them, anyone wanting to improve our debug 
reading in general by changing structures or whatnot, has to contend 
with the old, obsolete, and sometimes non-existent methods these 2 
readers use to build the various data structures gdb uses.
Had they kept up with the passage of time, i don't think we'd be 
considering obsoleting them, because they wouldn't be in the way.  They 
are so far past bit-rotted that they have evolved into their own 
obscure species.

> These users potential loss is someone elses potential gain.  These 
> users can also continue to use an existing GDB.
>
> As someone (michael?) suggested, can these users move to Free 
> compilers?
Nope, it was me who made the suggestion.
The other possibility I mentioned is that the vendor in question will 
wake up and implement a debug format from the past decade (DWARF 2.0 
standard was published July 27th, 1993).