Date: Thu, 8 Apr 93 11:06:14 EDT
From: gordon AT med DOT unc DOT edu (Gerald W. Gordon)
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Development Environment?

I'm a generalist in a medical research environment.
I'm not a software hot shot, but I need to write
(and hack) C programs on Unix and DOS (and maybe
MS Windows) machines.  I have not yet settled on
an environment and tools for DOS development projects.
I started out to write and debug under Unix (Sparc)
and copy the source to DOS and recompile.  The
problem I had was that the Sparc passes parameters
in registers and some coding errors had no effect
on the Sparc but trashed the stack on a 386.  So the
first question is Is there a full featured debugging
tool (like gdb) for the 386?  (debug32 isn't running
for me yet but that is a separate question.)
    I have Desqview/X v1.1 which I got to provide
multiple DOS windows in which I run telnet, ftp, and
DOS.  As good as DVX is as an X server it has some
incompatibilities and instabilities the way I use
it.  I have been considering OS/2 and Linux DOS
windows for access to DOS and the network.
Question 2:
    Will gcc, debug32, and gcc executables run in
an OS/2 DOS window?
    Will gcc, debug32, and gcc executables run in
an Linux DOS window?

Question 3)
    I presume if I develop under Linux I will have
gdb and will detect stack overwrites before going
to the DOS environment.  Am I correct?

    I welcome general advice since I may not know
the best questions.  I have some budget space for
software.
Many thanks,
Jerry Gordon
gordon AT med DOT unc DOT edu