debugger naming (was: a big step towards the trace-based debugger)

[Fergus Henderson]

On 01-Apr-1998, Zoltan Somogyi <zs at cs.mu.OZ.AU> wrote:
> 
> [Tyson wrote:]
> 
> > I don't particularly care for the name "mmd".  How about "mdebug",
> > "mercury-debug"?  I know we want to leave namespace for an Opium-style
> > debugger, but I don't think the way to do it is with "mmd".  I'm
> > happy for you to commit mmd for the moment, but I'd like to find a
> > better name for a release.
> 
> mmd stands for Melbourne Mercury Debugger. The opium-style one could be
> rmd, the Rennes Mercury Debugger :-)
> 
> The other name I thought of was mdb, in analogy to gdb.
> 
> Better get your votes in fast.

We need names for the following debuggers:

(a)  The Melbourne Uni single-process debugger that Zoltan (and Tyson) have
     been working on.
(b)  The Opium-style external-process debugger that Erwin will be
     working on.
(c)  The Melbourne Uni bytecode debugger that Bert has (not?) been working on.
     I believe the current prototype is a single-process debugger but
     that the intent is to eventually use two-process model.

Note that the issue of debugging bytecode versus debugging native code
could in fact be orthogonal to the choice of debugger; i.e. all three
could eventually allow both.

I suggest that we provide a front-end script called `mdb' which,
with appropriate options, will invoke any one of these.
The default would be whichever one happens to be best -- currently (a).
And since (b) and (c) are not yet implemented, `mdb' would currently
just be a trivial front-end to (a).

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger fjh at 128.250.37.3        |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.