debugmode(true) not helpful, was: Error loading stringproc

Robert Dodier wrote:
> On 4/25/08, Alasdair McAndrew <amca01 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Trying to do some work with strings, in Maxima 5.15.0 (clisp), I got:
>>
>> Load failed for
>> /usr/share/maxima/5.15.0/share/contrib/stringproc/stringproc.lisp
>>
>>  When I set debugmode(true) and tried to load stringproc again:
> 
> This is a separate issue, but can we just get rid of the bit of advice
> that is attached to every error message:
> "To debug this try debugmode(true);"
> 
> I have encountered very few errors for which debugmode(true) was
> any help at all. I guess if the functions in question are Maxima
> functions instead of Lisp functions, the debugger can help.
> But all core functions are Lisp functions so debugmode(true) is
> at best a distraction.

I, on the other hand, have found it quite useful, even for debugging 
Lisp functions.  What I do is debugmode(true).  When the error is 
encountered, I get the debug prompt.  As Robert says, it's not very 
useful with Lisp functions, but, at least with cmucl, I press C-c, and 
get kicked into cmucl's debugger (I normally run maxima -g), and then I 
can get nice Lisp backtraces, poke around in memory, look at some local 
variables, etc.

Actually, I think load issues are easiest to debug this way.  This is 
how I figured out some load issue with the affine package several weeks 
(months?) ago.

Ray