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Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 10:05:00 -0000
Message-Id: <ull1mlr0l.fsf@gnu.org>
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
To: Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com>
CC: michsnyd@cisco.com, ian@airs.com, gdb@sources.redhat.com
In-reply-to: <4334A1D3.2030309@apple.com> (message from Stan Shebs on Fri, 23
	Sep 2005 17:46:11 -0700)
Subject: Re: Using reverse execution
Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
References: <43309387.4020504@cisco.com> <m364sv49jg.fsf@gossamer.airs.com> <u4q8fhywx.fsf@gnu.org> <m3u0gf2hq9.fsf@gossamer.airs.com> <4331C468.3080204@cisco.com> <4334A1D3.2030309@apple.com>
X-SW-Source: 2005-09/txt/msg00181.txt.bz2

> Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 17:46:11 -0700
> From: Stan Shebs <shebs@apple.com>
> Cc: Ian Lance Taylor <ian@airs.com>, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,
>         gdb@sources.redhat.com
> 
> In the case of reverse execution, one Appleite wondered why anybody
> would bother, since you could repeatedly start the program over. And
> indeed, GDB makes the restarting process pretty quick and easy; just
> type "r". So reverse execution is not going to be a must-have unless
> rerunning is either impossible (as in the case of intermittent bugs),
> or very slow (as in the case of spending fifteen minutes giving
> iTunes a particular pattern of mouse clicks and CD insertions, just
> to get to the failing code).

You gave the answer yourself: most non-trivial bugs require prolonged
and complicated sequences of actions (program setup and user commands)
to reproduce the buggy behavior.  Restarting would mean that one needs
to redo all that every time, which is a PITA.