Re: Override changes standard -> optional

[Gabor Gombas <gombasg@sztaki.hu>]

On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 02:00:51PM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote:

> I think we ought to even consider adding gdb in addition to strace, size
> allowing, since these two tools are rather complementary in their use; but
> certainly, I'd prefer having strace over not having either.

I disagree. I use strace a lot and it is very handy to verify that a
service really uses the config/data files it is supposed to use or does
it react to a network packet or not even if it does not log anything
etc. OTOH gdb is only useful if you really know the internals of the
thing and you at least have debugging symbols installed (which is still
not available for the majority of packages). If you only have a binary
compiled with -O2 and no debugging symbols, and you do not have deep
understanding of the internal working of the program, then gdb is
practically useless.

Gabor

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     MTA SZTAKI Computer and Automation Research Institute
                Hungarian Academy of Sciences
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