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Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

#41

Post by louky »

euroclydon wrote: post #33
themenace wrote: post #32

This has parallels with the secret groundbreaking military technology that "60 Minutes"[1] was talking about in 2008. When you have unlimited capacity to store data and the processing power to tag objects (or people!) in real-time when you play it back, all kinds of new possibilities arise for software or surveillance (good and evil). My assumption is that the revolutionary advance was military aerial camera systems…

Thanks for sharing that. Interesting what constitutes a military breakthrough these days. A real nation-state with a military-industrial complex would just shoot that thing down.

It's being used domestically in the US, more than a little concerning to me.

Re: Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

#42

Post by ComputerGuru »

pjmlp wrote: post #23
ComputerGuru wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, .NET Native isn't really something you're supposed to be running for development; just a target you compile to for maximum performance that should produce identical results (think of it as an uber-release mode).

Microsoft advises to regularly test .NET Native builds, to ensure UWP apps work properly when compiled at the store level.

That’s correct. I just imagine the kind of cases that would need a time travelling debugger _and_ only occur with .NET Native are not too many.

Re: Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

#43

Post by jasode »

j_s wrote: post #34

Tools like this have always been how Microsoft segments the highest-price "Ultimate" version of Visual Studio (or whatever MS marketing has renamed things this month). As best I can tell there is no mention in this article of how this feature will be priced, which winds up limiting how often it will be useful simply because of availability. Let me know when this shows up in the free SKUs ("Express") or perhaps even t…

>Also, let me know if this ever comes to managed code.

For managed code, VS2010 (Ultimate) introduced Intellitrace for C# .NET code. It let you step "backwards" which is a form of "time travel".

Since 2010, people have wondered if Microsoft was going to introduce a similar debugging capability for C++. It looks like they did -- but instead of reusing the previous "Intellitrace" brand and calling it "Intellitrace for C++", they've labeled it "Time Travel Debugging".

Re: Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

#46

Post by euroclydon »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #35
euroclydon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing that. Interesting what constitutes a military breakthrough these days. A real nation-state with a military-industrial complex would just shoot that thing down.

Breakthroughs are situational. Many first tier militaries spend time thinking about urban pacification. Within those contexts, it really is a breakthrough. Just like how stealth aircraft were a breakthrough, and also totally useless in this situation.

Agree, but comparing it to the tank, in WW1 or WW2, where industrialized nations were fighting each other directly is flawed.

Re: Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

#47

Post by pjmlp »

kryptiskt wrote: post #24
ComputerGuru wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the fact that you're simply not right (COM, MFC, ATL, SWF, WPF, etc are all deprecated yet still supported and maintained), how is this on topic?

COM used to be treated as a legacy technology by Microsoft, but it is pretty central now.

As extra info, COM became central after Longhorn's failure.

Many of the .NET APIs became COM based ones on Vista, with plain C Win32 ones being less and less common until we got WinRT, as the sibling comment points out.

Interesting enough WinRT shares many ideas with the genesis of .NET, before they decided to go the CLR route.

Re: Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

#48

Post by pjmlp »

badminton1 wrote: post #16
ComputerGuru wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the fact that you're simply not right (COM, MFC, ATL, SWF, WPF, etc are all deprecated yet still supported and maintained), how is this on topic?

Some examples: XNA, Silverlight, WCF, etc.

XNA was a victim of the WinDev going WinRT. Microsoft kind of excused themselves by sponsoring MonoGame for XBox ONE indies.

WCF is still being supported, there was a .NET Conf 2017 session.

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2017/T6080

Re: Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

#49

Post by j_s »

jasode wrote: post #43
j_s wrote: post #34

Tools like this have always been how Microsoft segments the highest-price "Ultimate" version of Visual Studio (or whatever MS marketing has renamed things this month). As best I can tell there is no mention in this article of how this feature will be priced, which winds up limiting how often it will be useful simply because of availability. Let me know when this shows up in the free SKUs ("Express") or perhaps even t…

>Also, let me know if this ever comes to managed code. For managed code, VS2010 (Ultimate) introduced Intellitrace for C# .NET code. It let you step "backwards" which is a form of "time travel". Since 2010, people have wondered if Microsoft was going to introduce a similar debugging capability for C++. It looks like they did -- but instead of reusing the previous "Intellitrace" brand and calling it "Intellitrace for…

Thanks for straightening out my confusion!

Re: Thoughts on Microsoft's Time-Travel Debugger

#50

Post by KirinDave »

euroclydon wrote: post #33
themenace wrote: post #32

This has parallels with the secret groundbreaking military technology that "60 Minutes"[1] was talking about in 2008. When you have unlimited capacity to store data and the processing power to tag objects (or people!) in real-time when you play it back, all kinds of new possibilities arise for software or surveillance (good and evil). My assumption is that the revolutionary advance was military aerial camera systems…

Thanks for sharing that. Interesting what constitutes a military breakthrough these days. A real nation-state with a military-industrial complex would just shoot that thing down.

It's might become harder than you think.

Especially modern stuff. I've been talking with a lot of hobbyist drone owners lately and several folks are working on fascinating projects using a fleet of semi-autonomous lightweight fixed wing and quad drones along with modern autonomous aircraft techniques.

These things are small (you could hold them one handed on a crowded bus), fast (even the quads break 140mph), can be quiet (especially the fixed wings) and have cellphones.

One of the projects I saw was proving that an automated drone network could create a full coverage, high resolution video coverage of a parking lot even with drones having to leave the site to get fresh batteries.

They're working for a team that has a DARPA grant, so...

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