Re: Maple Vs Mathematica debugging


24. Richard J. FatemanDec 5, 3:18 pm   show options
Newsgroups: sci.math.symbolic
From: "Richard J. Fateman" <fate...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> - Find messages
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Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:18:11 -0800
Local: Mon, Dec 5 2005 3:18 pm
Subject: Re: Maple Vs Mathematica debugging
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car...@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: >>The reviewer prefers the Maple GUI and
front end, and found >>the lack of a Mathematica debugger annoying.

> Lack of a debugger is most annoying to beginner users, but > there are in fact 3 major builtin pieces missing in the kernel:

> 1) incremental debugger (or even a plain debugger) > 2) error tracer > 3) real-time breakpointer and "cook-timer"
> Why might this be troublesome in Mathematica?

Since Mathematica is not written in Lisp the facilities I mentioned
(backtrace, break, step debugger, etc) are not part of the language,
and will have to be implemented separately.

Ideally they should had been part of the kernel from the start, and
engines threaded around them. That is the way fault-tolerant
systems are designed. Of course, kernels can be rewritten from
scratch as Linux has proven, if enough resources are provided.

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