[platform-debug-dev] Multicontext debugging proposal

[Darin Wright <Darin_Wright@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Pawel,

I added more comments to the multicontext debugging proposal:

 
http://wiki.eclipse.org/DSDP/DD/MultiContext_UnlinkViewContextProposal#Comments

Since the comments section is getting large I've also included them in 
this posting:

Reviewing this proposal again, I think what's missing is the higher level 
goal. I believe the higher level goal is to be able to have sets of debug 
views linked to a specific context, and to be able to have different debug 
contexts (e.g. cores within a session) have different sets of views that 
can be placed side by side. 

I think a problem with this proposal is that it places a heavy burder on 
the user to manage views. For example, they must manually unlink and pin 
views to a specific context. Then, once a context is stale it's not clear 
how to cleanup the view (i.e. is it left floating?), and how to 
capture/reuse a "view configuration" in a later debug session now that 
time has been spent setting it up. Can the user set up a view 
configuration before launching (i.e. in a launch configuration)? 

Note that the debug platform already has a mechanism for grouping views 
for a particular kind of debug session. For example, a Java debug session 
has a certain set of views assocaited with it, and when the user selects a 
Java stack frame, the relevant views are brought to the front/opened. 
There are extension points to support this: contextViewBindings and 
debugModelContextBindings. Basically, we tie a "context" to a set of views 
and bind a debug model to a "context". 

I wonder if it would be simpler to enhance the existing support to allow 
for a "new set" (more instances) of the same views to be opened for a 
debug session. This would leverage the existing support any may help 
achieve the higher level goal (a dedicated group of related views for a 
debug session) with less steps/burden placed on the user. I could also see 
this sort of support appearing in a launch config - i.e. as a check box to 
use a new set of views, and perhaps which views they'd like to see. 

Darin Wright
Eclipse Debug Lead,
Rational Team,
IBM Canada
(204)938-8051