On Tue, 2006-12-26 at 19:26 +0100, Wouter van Ooijen wrote:
> > My point is you one doesn't realize how useful the ICD2 is 
> > until you're
> > doing a project without the equivalent features.
> 
> That depends a lot on your personal debugging sytle (and also somewhat
> on the type of projects you do). I have ICD2's around, and I have done
> things on ARMs with debugging interface, but I still mostly stick to the
> 'printf' style debugging. 

The "printf" style of debugging is great, to a point.

It can however be very limiting. What if you don't have a serial (or
other) interface for displaying/outputting the printf? 

Sure, adding a level translator /serial port works, but it's work for no
good reason. The ICD2/JTAG style of debugging is great because there's
no extra work: you need the ICD2/JTAG connection anyways to program the
part. 

Even worse, what if the bug you are investigating results in
unpredictable behaviour of your printf? On the ARM based part I'm using
now I had to investigate a bug that was killing the printf. Sometimes
the printf would work, sometimes it wouldn't. The bug was VERY difficult
to track down because the presence of printfs changed the symptom of the
problem.

That's the real benefit to me of the ICD2/JTAG type debugging: it has
(ideally) no effect whether you use it or not (of course there are cases
where the break points can affect a problem). It's a "back door".

TTYL

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