[m-dev.] Grade confusion

[Julien Fischer]

On Sun, 16 Nov 2014, Mark Brown wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 5:03 PM, Paul Bone <paul at bone.id.au> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I saw this question on stackoverflow.com
>>
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26916819/how-do-i-compile-for-debugging-in-mercury-programming-language/26943053#26943053
>>
>> I'm pretty sure that adding a grade flag merely adds that grade component
>> onto the default or specified grade.  So that if my default grade is hlc.gc
>> and I need to use asm_fast.gc.debug for debugging specifying --debug won't
>> do what I need.  In this case someone who reads the debugging part of the
>> user guide which instructs them to use --debug may be confused.
>>
>> A number of new users have commented on how Mercury's large number of grades
>> make things confusing, however that problem is going to take a long time to
>> solve.  In the interim, I propose changing the user guide.  Any thoughts?
>
> I have no idea what you are proposing to change the user guide to.
>
> The seemingly obvious solution to your problem is for the --debug
> option to select one of the debug grades that is actually installed,
> if possible. So there could be two default grades, the usual one and
> one with debugging. Please don't tell me you think this will take a
> long time to solve.


This was discussed on the review list a few months ago:
<http://www.mercurylang.org/list-archives/reviews/2014-September/017300.html>.

Cheers,
Julien.