Re: Strange Debug behaviors...

It's been a few months since I posted this message. I didn't get any replies at that time, but now that it's been a few months and there's a new update out there, am reposting it to see if anyone may have recently encountered such behaviors with RDP. In particular, items 1 and 2 are of note, and even with the upgrade to 8.0.3, this behavior is still being noted.

-----Original Message-----
From: wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tarr, Kenneth
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 3:19 PM
To: 'Rational Developer for IBM i / Websphere Development Studio Client for System i & iSeries'
Subject: [WDSCI-L] Strange Debug behaviors...

I've just updated to the latest fix pack to see how well RDP performs, especially in Debug. I currently have an issue with Debug where it will sometimes lose a connection to the host, which I currently have a PMR opened up for. My issue however is related to the other odd behavior of Debug, and I wanted to see if anyone else has run across these scenarios, and better yet, a solution to them (a setting change, etc.)

So here's the list...

1) When using the Animated Step Into feature, the step action doesn't sync with the Stepping Speed settings about 90% of the time. For example, I have the step speed set to 100ms, which should translate to about ten lines per second. When using the feature, it steps at best three lines per second. I've been told this might be due to updates to other views (the Debug view which shows a treelike structure of the stack, or the Monitors view which shows current values of monitored variables), however there have been times when with the same variables I am watching, I get the fast stepping I hope for, but most of the time I get the slower version. There are also times during a debug session where, after pausing the animated stepping, resuming the stepping causes the debugger to suddenly go from slow to fast, and a few times, the exact reverse. As mentioned before I like this feature of RDP, but feel frustrated that it is inconsistent with the stepping speed. (I wanted to wait until we upgraded to our new and faster system to see if this would clear up, but it's still the same.)

2) When using the Animated Step Into feature, the Debug view may behave strangely. For example, what normally happens is the Listing view shows each line the debugger is on. Nice to sit back and watch without wearing your finger out either on the keyboard or the mouse button (lol). However, once in awhile the Debug view suddenly refreshes the tree branch after each line it steps through, even if nothing in the stack changes. It's annoying because it blanks out the whole view, then relists the branch, etc. whereas for awhile it doesn't have this kind of "flicker". Then later, it may cause the Listing view to stop updating until I stop the animated debug. (I don't recall if it stops updating the Monitors view however; I'll have to watch that one...)

3) In the Monitors view, it is possible to monitor the same field more than once. When this is done because the field appears in two or more programs that were in the Listing view, it will update only the field related to the program it was associated with at the time. This is kind of confusing. It would be nice (I guess this is a feature request) to have the field associated with the program which it is being monitored in; that is, to display that information with the field. For the time being, I have to know which one is associated with which program, which is tedious at times but can be done.

4) When doing a parallel debug (I am simultaneously debugging the same application between two systems), it does show a separate branch in the Debug view...but only one Listing view. Should there be a separate view tab for each debug session? (Guess that's another enhancement request...)

5) On occasion (not sure of what the condition is), the Listing view doesn't allow you to view the entire source listing. When scrolling up or down, sometimes it stops scrolling up at a certain line or down at a certain line. This restricts the ability to search for a specific string as a result (Ctrl/K is restricted as well). As debug goes on, this sometimes clears up only if it references a line from the "out of bounds" code...

6) When setting up a configuration, if more than one configuration is set up with a list of programs, sometimes the list commingles with other configurations. This includes breakpoints, etc. Removing the other configurations resolves this, but it shouldn't be necessary to do that.

Things I do like about this Debug...

1) Simultaneous Parallel debugging (with a little work)
2) Being able to switch to other source views within the branch quickly to see where debug was last in those programs
3) The animated step feature, as it helps provide a little better (and quicker) understanding of an application flow

Ken
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