Re: Current Status of Insight

[Fernando Nasser <fnasser@redhat.com>]

Steven Johnson wrote:
> Paul Schlie wrote:
> 
>>>> But what Java does not have - is a command line it is
>>>> compiled langauge Tcl/Tk - it is some what enherent.
>>>>     
>>>
>>> Well, something similar could be implemented in Java with BeanShell
>>> (http://www.beanshell.org/). jEdit uses this.
>>>   
>>
>>
>>  
>>
> Wouldnt a front end to GDB written in Java, and using MI be Eclipse 
> CDT?  Surely it would be better to contribute to that project, if thats 
> what people wanted, rather than do it again?  The Eclipse CDT GDB Front 
> end certainly seems to need a lot of work, especially where access to 
> the GDB command line, and embedded development are concerned (I cant 
> find how to do a "Load" from the interface, for example).  [This is not 
> a criticism of Eclipse/CDT or the work they have already done, which is 
> a lot, just an observation.]
> 

Unfortunately that code is tightly coupled with Eclipse.  Ans many 
people don't want to use Eclipse, just a debugger GUI.



> 
> I also would have thought, from the FSF view, "JAVA" would be more evil 
> [def: less compaitble with the ideals of the FSF] than "tcl" because 
> "JAVA" isnt really free.  Im sure most people have seen the message on 
> the FSF sites about Java.
> 

That is moot.  The MI interface is standard and decouples whatever GUI 
it is from GDB.

One can write it under whichever license, whichever language, anything.

There are many GUIs already written with MI that fall in all possible 
categories you can imagine.

MI is not an API, it is a line protocol where messages are exchanged in 
an ASCII format.  Think of it as a SOAP poor cousin.