[Gcl-devel] Re: [Maxima] How do I compile Maxima with debugging information?

[Richard Fateman]

Debugging tools in Allegro CL are described in
http://www.franz.com/support/documentation/6.2/doc/debugging.htm

I would be interested in an analysis of how this
differs from the current GCL or CMUCL or CLISP situation.

While I have used conceptual predecessors of gdb, I have not
used them extensively or recently. My impression is that they are
not really suited for a functional programming style.  Of course
you can do almost anything in a low level debugger if you try
hard enough. (I think that on the ITS system the debugger and the
assembler were essentially the same program.)

RJF


Camm Maguire wrote:

> Greetings!  I'm also interested in debugging facilities for lisp, and
> would like to make the GCL debugger more useful.
>
> Could you elaborate on what features you find useful in ACL which are
> missing from GCL?
>
> Though I haven't researched the lisp options extensively, its hard to
> conceive of a better debugger than gdb.  And fortunately, as GCL
> compiles to C, we may be able to design a lisp front end to gdb in
> analogy with its fortran front end.
>
> Take care,
>
> Richard Fateman <address@hidden> writes:
>
>  
>
> > by the way... the debugging tools vary depending upon
> > the underlying lisp. They are not part of the ANSI
> > standard. There is no requirement that local variables
> > be accessible in a break. In fact they may not exist
> > if the system always compiles functions and removed the
> > variables by optimization.
> >
> >  The commercial macsyma debugging
> > tools seem to be fairly poor, though it could be that
> > I just don't have any documentation!!
> >
> > My recollection of the AKCL system (now GCL) was that
> > the debugging tools were also fairly limited, at least
> > compared to Allegro CL, which I generally use.
> >
> > I do not have much experience with CMUCL, except I
> > recall that the CMUCL compiler was slow and verbose,
> > but produced good code.
> >
> > I have not used CLISP.
> >
> > RJF
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Maxima mailing list
> > address@hidden
> > http://www.math.utexas.edu/mailman/listinfo/maxima
> >
> >
> >
> >    
>
>