Subject: Re: bug#4375: 23.1.50; can't kill killed gud buffer

From: [email-masked] (Nick Roberts)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:03:54 +1200

> > I wondered what was preventing Jan from using GDB 7.0.
 > >
 > 
 > Different things. Policy for one, i.e. the tools to use are version  
 > controlled locally. Much work for another. Many older distros will  
 > never upgrade Gdb. To compile it on many machines is a big job (I  
 > don't mind doing it for Emacs since I test and develop Emacs).

Maybe your use pattern, i.e. Emacs in CVS and old GDB, is somewhat unusual.  I
would expect most users to have released versions of both programs, probably
those which are included in their distribution.

 > IMHO this 7.0 requirement will make gdb-mode useless for the majority  
 > of users. Do we even know if 7.0 is released before 23.2 is? The  
 > strength of gdb-mode in the past is that you just did M-x gdb and it  
 > worked with whatever Gdb version you had.

I expect GDB 7.0 to be released before Emacs 23.2 in which case it's likely
that when 23.2 is bundled with a distribution that will include 7.0 too.  I'm
more concerned about the quality of the mode being worthy for inclusion in the
release.

In any case, at the moment we're talking about bleeding edge Emacs in CVS.
I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect such a version to be stable enough to
debug itself and it would seem more natural to use a release version for such
a purpose.

I don't think that requiring 7.0 will make gdb-mode useless but, in truth, I
don't know who uses it, or how they use it.  I guess that would need a poll
and even then those that repond are likely to be unrepresentative.

and:

 > ... that M-x gdb should be gud-gdb and the new mode should have  
 > another name. At least until Gdb 7.0 isn't so new and uncommon.

I think that to swap back now that Emacs 23.1 has been released will only
cause confusion.

 > Most people don't read NEWS.

No, but hopefully they will read the documentation.  If not, then all is
pretty much lost anyway.

-- 
Nick                                           http://www.inet.net.nz/~nickrob