Re: DWARF experts/users/knowledge

Our moderator wrote:


>[Ron Guilmette will doubtless be in touch with you, he did a lot of the
>DWARF work. -John]


Proper modesty demands that I clarify this unfortunately over-broad
assertion.


It is certainly true that I have, in my time, done a great deal of
work on and with the DWARF format for source-level symbolic debugging
infor- mation. In particular, I was an active participant in the
Programming Language Special Interest Group (PLSIG)... a working group
chartered under the auspices of UNIX International (now
defunct)... which worked to refine, enhance, and document two separate
detailed DWARF specification documents (i.e. DWARF I and DWARF II). I
also did the DWARF implementation (with support for C only) which has
been available in the free publically- available GNU compiler for
quite some time.


However to say that I ``did a lot of the DWARF work'' fails by a wide
margin to give proper credit to the enormous amounts of work that have
been done on and with DWARF, over time, by numerous other individuals
and companies, in particular the folks at UNIX Software Laboratories
(USL) who developed the first compliers and debuggers to implement
DWARF... an activity that I had nothing to do with, and which
therefore I can take no credit for... as well as the numerous
representatives of other companies, including USL, Data General, SGI,
Sun, Intel, and several others who labored long and hard to refine,
enhance, and document the aforementioned two DWARF specification
documents. The sum total of the efforts expended by the
representatives of these companies (all of whom served on a voluntary
basis in the PLSIG group) exceed my own contributions by a wide
margin.


Additionally, in the realm of implementation, the folks at SGI have, I
believe, done a lot more serious-minded (and product oriented)
implemen- tation work on DWARF than I ever did, and their
contributions to the general acceptance of DWARF in the marketplace
cannot be overstated.


In sum, I am very proud of the fine work that we in the PLSIG group
did on the DWARF I and DWARF II specifications, and I would love to be
able to take more than my fair share of the credit for these fine
accomplish- ments, but fairness demands that the credit be properly
shared among the many people who have worked to refine, extend,
document, and implement DWARF.
--


-- Ron Guilmette, Roseville, CA -------- Infinite Monkeys & Co. ------------
---- E-mail: rfg@monkeys.com -----------------------------------------------
[Oh, OK. How about this: Ron Guilmette made a few piddly little contributions
to the DWARF work, but I still think you should talk to him. -John]
--

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