Today we get to hear Ted Mielczarek speak on the Mozilla Build system. According to Dave, I will be communicating with Ted about the project I signed up for, the Mozilla Source and Symbol Server.
Let me say first of all that I chose this project because I know nothing about it. Let me emphasize this: NOTHING.
So, to get started – looking over the resources provided, reading up on what a source server is and what a symbol server is. I think that I need to see the symbol server in action so that I can know why a source server would be beneficial. This means I need to learn how people debug Mozilla.
Apparently you can debug both in VStudio and also in something called Windbg (which makes me think “windbag”). I have VStudio 2005 already installed and last year a fellow classmate showed me how to do some basic debugging of my C++ programs. At the time that was a huge breakthrough – to be able to see exactly how far into a function I could get, to see what a variable was set to was a huge help in figuring out where something was going terribly wrong.
I don’t know if debugging Mozilla is like this. I haven’t got it set up yet. My next goal is to find someone who can show me their debugging process. I learn best visually. So for now, I have just downloaded windbag…
