Re: [PATCH V1 1/1] contrib/vscode/: debugging with VS Code and gdb

From: Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@univ-lyon1.fr>
To: "Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason" <avarab@gmail.com>,
	"COGONI Guillaume" <cogoni.guillaume@gmail.com>
Cc: "derrickstolee@github.com" <derrickstolee@github.com>,
	"git.jonathan.bressat@gmail.com" <git.jonathan.bressat@gmail.com>,
	"git@vger.kernel.org" <git@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH V1 1/1] contrib/vscode/: debugging with VS Code and gdb
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2022 10:59:06 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <6a5152c1-7bb4-220c-cdce-33e93ea9c7c6@univ-lyon1.fr> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <66f08cb2e81647e29a080af05d7c867e@SAMBXP02.univ-lyon1.fr>

On 4/6/22 10:47, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Apr 06 2022, COGONI Guillaume wrote:
> 
> I really don't mind having some guide for VSCode in our developer
> documentation, but I think if we (as a free software project) are
> recommending proprietary software we should put that in some context
> where we explain if/why it's needed, and if free alternatives are also
> suitable.

Note that VS Code is mostly open source (the pre-compiled binaries are 
proprietary, but the source code is MIT licenced, 
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode). Not to be confused with Visual 
Studio, which is fully proprietary, but is a totally different tool 
(AFAIK, they only share the name).

> I haven't used the VSCode integration you're documenting, but from the
> diff and the "gdb" mention I gather that this isn't using some "native"
> debugger of MSVC/VS's, but just using the VSCode editor as a wrapper for
> gdb?

Yes (gdb or lldb under the hood). As usual, it adds a GUI layer, but 
also a configuration layer where you specify how to launch the debugger 
in a launch.json file, and this is where the little script in contrib/ 
is handy to generate a launch.json adapted for Git.

> If that's the case wouldn't it suffice to link to some generic getting
> started guide for debuggers? And e.g. recommend the GDB manual, maybe
> there's a better online reference (I read it locally), but e.g.:
> https://www.sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb.html

To me the point of the doc within Git's repo is to document git-specific 
aspects, and I agree that pointing to a generic doc is better than 
re-writing one. If I had written the patch I'd have made the general 
paragraph on debugger benefits a bit shorter, but it's already rather 
short so I'm OK with the patch in its current state.

> Then if we're recommending GUI wrappers those are a dime a dozen,
> e.g. Emacs's GUD mode:
> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Debuggers.html

To me this is out of the scope of the patch (the real point to me was to 
increase the discoverability of contrib/vscode), but sure, documenting 
other GUI wrappers would be nice.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
https://matthieu-moy.fr/