[maint] The GDB maintenance process

[Andrew Cagney]

> ac131313@redhat.com (Andrew Cagney) writes:
> 
>> > Some noticeable differences between these two models:
>> >   - In the GCC model, more people are able/likely to check in patches which
>> >     break things.
>> >   - But in the GCC model, more people are able/likely to check in patches to
>> >     fix it afterwards.
> 
>> 
>> (ROFL.)
>> 
>> The GCC model involves a number of development phases and the above
>> comments would only relate to one of those phases.  At other times
>> increasingly strict controls are placed on what can be
>> committed/approved.  The GCC group spend a significant (out of
>> control?)  amount of their time trying to re-stablize GCC for their
>> releases.
>> 
>> For GDB, on the other hand, interesting development can and does get
>> approved/committed at any time.  GDB snaps are of such quality that we
>> can confidently refer someone to current sources for fixes (except
>> when I have a bad day like today :-).  Further, instead of using
>> official releases (and as you yourself have done) arbitrary snaps can
>> even make their way into a distro.
> 
> 
> The problem is, being that stable has a cost associated with it.  GCC
> pays that cost at certain parts in their cycle; we pay that cost all
> the time, every day.

GDB is less stable then you might think.  Right now while both:

- interps
- frame

are causing problems they are not getting in the way of DavidC's dwarf2 
stuff (gee wiz, both my doing :-/).  GDB always builds, gdb always 
`break main; run'.  Is that too much to ask?

The problem with GDB's stability is that allows people to quickly forget:

- what it is like with out it
- how much gain there is from it
- how relatively small the pain
- how much more expensive it is to have to re-do something later
- how, with a bit of peer revew, problematic code could have been done 
right the first time (and how much that fallout costs).

Andrew