Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.quux.org!news.nk.ca!rocksolid2!i2pn2.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: mhx@iae.nl (mhx) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: Why dial-a-standard is not a thing in Forth Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2025 17:25:29 +0000 Organization: novaBBS Message-ID: <7e457d7806c81fb9895256627c045aa1@www.novabbs.com> References: <87bjtn2hct.fsf@gmail.com> <908575911ef8d6ba989deee854aa33cecc39ab9a@i2pn2.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: i2pn2.org; logging-data="2561850"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@i2pn2.org"; posting-account="J+nubxJRM7ncpF4l6KLO+OONWmFAYJHVJegfwQXJ8vc"; User-Agent: Rocksolid Light X-Rslight-Posting-User: 4e0dc1fdad1ead10b39e7eb5db19bf73d73e3ab3 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 4.0.0 X-Rslight-Site: $2y$10$o785ECcy7UZZ9QGWL6G.eupUekdSQwJXlQGuev7Kd8x3nJxksdAmq > Although it's wonderful to list in detail what might have caused the > error - and how to fix it - sometimes all you need is a clue to > hang a picture on. Well, my life would be quite miserable if iForth did not give me an error message, a stack-trace, and the file + line-number where the error occurred. I know quite well how to fix errors, the problem is to first find where they are (in a 10,000 line program) so that I can check Git for my changes and the surrounding text for 'documentation' on things I changed 6 months ago. ('Documentation' is in many cases just this programmer's description of how he hopes his code works and never afterwards updated to reality.) Once the error is found, I break out my trusty ^^ tool to set a printing break-point (with extra code to give variable and pointer information, or to skip breaking until the umpteenth iteration or some other computable event). In very difficult cases I attach a C debugging environment to trace memory overwrites, but in almost all other situations Forth is *much* easier for debugging. C debuggers are getting better though, they are able to evaluate sizable pieces of code interactively nowadays but no 'on-the-spot' macros or accurate and immediate on-the-spot re-compiles yet. -marcel