Microsoft Visual Studio Debugger: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:41, 7 March 2013

Revision as of 11:18, 14 October 2013

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The main shortcoming of the Visual Studio Debugger is its inability to trace into [[kernel (computer science)|kernel]]-mode code. However, this is possible using a free [[VisualDDK]] extension. Alternatively, kernel-mode debugging of Windows is generally performed by using [[WinDbg]], KD, or [[SoftICE]].

The Visual Studio Debugger also has no ability to debug [[Lambda-expression#Lambda_calculus_and_programming_languages|Lambda-Expressions]] or [[Language Integrated Query|LINQ]]. This is because ofit thewould hightake complexitytoo themuch debuggerwork wouldfor growMicrosoft to implement.<ref>http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jaredpar/archive/2009/08/26/why-no-linq-in-debugger-windows.aspx</ref><ref>http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jaredpar/archive/2010/06/02/why-is-linq-absent-from-debugger-windows-part-2.aspx</ref><ref>http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/472999/ability-to-evaluate-lambda-expressions-in-immediate-window</ref> However, most developers working with Lambda expressions are able to visualize the data through the several memory windows or by storing the result into a variable.

Edit-and-continue is held by many developers as Microsoft's greatest asset given to developers. A program that is running in memory, that encounters a simple mistake, can be corrected without having to stop the current program or exit the debugger. This feature allows very common mistakes to be corrected easily and with great time savings over other solutions which require exiting the program, making the change, recompiling, and then navigating back through the running program to the previous ___location.