[GemStone-Smalltalk] GBS for VA Smalltalk debugging

[Jonas Bjelkerud via GemStone-Smalltalk]

We use (our own subclass of) StsDebugger. We really love the seamless client/server debugging capabilities (stack frames from the client image and the GemStone server in the same debugger). It's really powerful.

We are using VAST 8.0.2 and GemStone 64-bit 2.4.3. GemBuilder 5.3.

Since you're interested in experiences with the GemStone debugging support, here are a few issues that has a great impact on GemStone debugging (note that we're not using the latest versions):
- The "through" and "to cursor" buttons don't work when debugging GemStone code.
- Sometimes, each "over" step takes a long time (a second or two). But sometimes it's really fast. We haven't seen any pattern in when it's fast and when it's slow.
- The "over" button always goes into blocks/loops, whereas in client code, the "over" button executes the whole block/loop in one step (and you can use "through" to step into the block).
- Combined, these glitches make GemStone debugging a lot slower than client debugging.
(- And it would help if the source code selection of the next statement to be executed was more like the client).
- Every now and then, we get an error message when trying to set breakpoints: "you cannot set breakpoints in executed code". What does that mean?

Jonas

-----Original Message-----
From: GemStone-Smalltalk [mailto:gemstone-smalltalk-bounces at lists.gemtalksystems.com] On Behalf Of Richard Sargent via GemStone-Smalltalk
Sent: 8. juni 2015 17:56
To: gemstone-smalltalk at lists.gemtalksystems.com
Subject: [GemStone-Smalltalk] GBS for VA Smalltalk debugging

I am looking for information on what debuggers people use in VA Smalltalk and why they use the ones they do. This information will help me plan how GBS (GemBuilder for Smalltalk) will need to change.

If I understand correctly, there are three debuggers one might use:
- the basic, original IBM Smalltalk debugger named DbgDebugger
- Server Smalltalk debugger (SstDebugger?)
- Instantiations' debugger (StsDebugger)

I believe that everyone would prefer the StsDebugger over the DbgDebugger. I don't know how the SstDebugger fits in anyone's work, and whether anyone using Server Smalltalk would even use a GemStone database at all.

Thank you for your feedback.
Richard