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Subject: Re: a question about the value of checking bounds

Author: Eran

Date: 11:17:21 01/21/03

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On January 21, 2003 at 12:08:08, Uri Blass wrote:

>I finished the time of my evaluation of checking bounds.
>
>It is expensive to buy it and before deciding if to buy it I want to know about
>the value of the alternatives.
>
>How many programmers use it?
>
>
>I talk about it with other programmers(not of chess programs and not in C).
>
>They suggested the following ideas:
>1)Not many people buy checking bounds and this is the reason that the price is
>so high.
>2)checking bounds may be effective to check some work of other programmers but
>programmers who work about their program do not need it.
>
>
>They suggested that it is better if I write functions to do it and replace all
>A[i]= with some f(A,i) that will also check for me if i is inside the bounds
>that are defined by A.
>I said that I think that if I do it then my code will be at least twice slower.
>
>I can also do a special slower code for debug(something that I do not do today)
>but I do not like the idea that every time that I add code then I will need to
>add also code for debugging.
>This may also make me slower in finding specific place that I want to change.
>
>I know that I may have bugs so practically after every small change I do some
>checking to see if I get the expected result by telling the program to print
>some information but I delete the code after finding that the program prints the
>right information.
>
>I am interested to read about the experience of programmers that use checking
>bounds.
>
>I have the following questions for them:
>
>1)Did checking bounds help you?
>2)Do you usually add code for debugging inspite of having checking bounds?
>If 1 and 2 are  positive then question 3
>
>3)Do you decide to use less debugging code thanks to checking bounds?
>
>Uri

If you want to know how to debug your program effectively without using checking
bounds, I suggest that you order a book titled "Debugging Windows Programs" by
Everett N. McKay and Mike Woodrig from Amazon.com. Despite the pricy of the
checking bounds program, the book costs $44.95 only - not a bad idea. ;-) (ISBN
0-201-70238-X)

Eran



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