We are a software firm developing in C++ and we recently made the step from
Microsoft Visual Studio 6 to Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003. We are really
excited about the quality of the compiler; however there seem to be some
issues with the debugger or the combination of our code with the debugger
that makes debugging very slow and inconvenient.
Since our efficiency in software development seriously decreased, we are
looking for possible solutions for these issues.
Let me first describe our current situation. We have a large code base (the
total size of source code + dll’s + PDB information is more than 6.5 GB of
which the main part debugging information). In the debugger we notice two
main problems:
* The first one is the slowness when stepping through the code (which can be
mainly solved by clearing the visible watch windows, eliminating breakpoints,
etc.). * The second problem is that browsing through objects in the watch
window is very, very slow and is only possible up to a certain level. At each
level the time necessary to go to the next level increases exponentially (for
example the first levels don’t give any problem, but at the 10th level the
CPU load becomes 100% for 30 seconds). The reason that we need to navigate to
such a depth, is that we are using class hierarchies with quite a number of
interfaces, both for our objects and our smart pointers.
We’ve already searched the Internet for related problems and possible
solutions, which lead us to:
· Try to limit the number of breakpoints in general or more specifically the
number of unresolved breakpoints (the following KB is related to this
problem: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;331684 )
· Disable the anti-virus software
· Debug in native mode
· Try uninstalling IIS (we don’t have it on our development machines)
Of these none really solved our problem.
Microsoft Visual Studio 6 to Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003. We are really
excited about the quality of the compiler; however there seem to be some
issues with the debugger or the combination of our code with the debugger
that makes debugging very slow and inconvenient.
Since our efficiency in software development seriously decreased, we are
looking for possible solutions for these issues.
Let me first describe our current situation. We have a large code base (the
total size of source code + dll’s + PDB information is more than 6.5 GB of
which the main part debugging information). In the debugger we notice two
main problems:
* The first one is the slowness when stepping through the code (which can be
mainly solved by clearing the visible watch windows, eliminating breakpoints,
etc.). * The second problem is that browsing through objects in the watch
window is very, very slow and is only possible up to a certain level. At each
level the time necessary to go to the next level increases exponentially (for
example the first levels don’t give any problem, but at the 10th level the
CPU load becomes 100% for 30 seconds). The reason that we need to navigate to
such a depth, is that we are using class hierarchies with quite a number of
interfaces, both for our objects and our smart pointers.
We’ve already searched the Internet for related problems and possible
solutions, which lead us to:
· Try to limit the number of breakpoints in general or more specifically the
number of unresolved breakpoints (the following KB is related to this
problem: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;331684 )
· Disable the anti-virus software
· Debug in native mode
· Try uninstalling IIS (we don’t have it on our development machines)
Of these none really solved our problem.
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