Dear lazyweb,
When learning some code I didn't know before, my usual way to get familiar with it is to first find some documentation or a kind spirit to help me understand the big picture, and then to run the code in a debugger or to do something like '/bin/sh -x', or some such, so that I can understand how it actually flows. That works pretty well with most software.
One of the things with which it does not work, however, is gcc's .md files. As far as I know, there are no debuggers for those files; and even though Simon helped me understand a few things about it at Debconf, I'm still not confident enough to just start editing stuff. Additionally, just randomly editing a 7k+ LOC file and expecting those edits to magically work is not something I consider very likely to succeed.
So, dear lazyweb: how does one debug gcc's .md files?
Ok.. oops.. Talking of something I don't have any experience with. But it sounds "a little" ugly. I assume this will be kind of meta assembly? It is source code. I did some googling but could find anything on the subject. Sounds interesting though. Especially if it is this important (mapping source onto processor specific code). Isn't there any documentation or reference? I am not a much of a coder myself but will ask a good coding friend of mine. I'd appreciate it if you keep me informed. 7000 lines of code.... pfew... "dapper" we call that in dutch.
Your radio interview ROCKED! It was a good balanced interview. It was nice the guy that interviewed you knew something about the subject. In my work (I work for the dutch government) there is a lot fuss about this. You gave a nice overview of the problems around software patents.
Ok... I Asked the friend... and he came up with the GNU links... Right... thats .md ..... And now debug it....
He answered: (Sorry in dutch)
Rubin: Ok Bob je weet dat deze vraag 11 scoort op de nerd/geek gehalte schaal van
van 1 tot 10? ... even stilte... Rubin: Waarom wil deze gast dat in hemelsnaam?