From: aking@BBN.COM (Allen King)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.programmer
Subject: A few small changes for 3.1
Date: 19 Dec 1992 19:01:08 GMT
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Reply-To: aking@BBN.COM (Allen King)
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

   Here are a few little nuisances I've found with 3.0 which maybe
NeXT could clean up before 3.1 comes out. Perhaps others have found
them too, perhaps not.  Other's may want to add to the list too. I'd
hate to have a new release come out without them, just because NeXT
didn't think of them and nobody thought to mention them, especially if
they are easy ;-).


EDIT
    1. when editing a .m file, a quick "edit associated .h file"
button. Ditto for .h to .m.
    2. A menue which would display only .m and .c files. Perhaps
that's a file selection mask on the file:open_folder... . Something
like "*.m *.c PB.*".
    3. A way to get a TAGS search. Currently I only seem to be able to
use TAG files for Source commands, and it would eliminate alot of
grepping
    4. A way the find pannel could do complete-word searches. It is
important to find all of the instances of short variables (e.g. "k").
Think C has it as a mode which works well -- it might also be a
"variable-break" special character.


GDB
    1. Everything possible to speed up the compile/load/debug/go cycle:

    1a. The idea of staying in gdb between compiles is great, with
automatic detection an reload of symbols on recompile. However, there
seems to be a bug, and the symbols are loaded incorrectly when it
tries to do this are. I could spend some time and give you an example
if you cannot recreate it yourself.

    1b. When reloading symbols, much time is spent loading shared
library symbols, such as libMedia_s.A.shlib, libNeXT_s.C.shlib, and
libsys_s.B.shlib. Why can't those symbols be loaded once and never
reloaded? E.g. load them first, and save the high-water marks, or an
image of them. If only portions are loaded, it still deserves some
work, because I'd bet that the portion that gets loaded very
infrequently changes.

    2. The browser should not reposition sliders during step, because
often one wants to monitor a variable at the bottom, and the sliders
keep bumping back to the top.
    3. Have gdb print out what variables were changed by the statement
just executed, and their new values. I spend a lot of time tracing
this information down when I step through a program. I'm not sure how
the symbol table could be made to contain this, but it'd be nice to
have.
    4. A compiler switch to make all variables visible in gdb (by
forcing them out of registers). (Maybe this already exists.)

WORKSPACE
    1. When duplicating a file in the workspace, let the name be edited
while the copy is in progress. That's a very frequent sequence, and
things would go much faster that way.

PB
    1. Why not recognize the suffix .project, and not require the full
name PB.project? It seems more standardized, and would allow me to put
a bunch of projects onto my shelf and tell them apart. This way, they
all look alike!
    2. The debug button should be smarter about not spawning too many
Terminal's. If there's one there, use it and tell it that things have
been recompiled.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.programmer