[Ironruby-core] Pair debugging

[Shri Borde]

I spent a couple of hours this morning debugging RubyGems unit test failures along with Jirapong Nanta. It was a fun exercise. We tracked down two issues and hopefully Jirapong found the experience useful to jump start his exploration of the IronRuby code base.

I am open to helping others too. I have put the following notes at the bottom of http://wiki.github.com/ironruby/ironruby/debugging to ensure that we can have a productive session. Jirapong had done his homework, gotten RubyGems to work cleanly with MRI, and done a bit of debugging himself, which is why we had a productive session.
Pair debugging with experienced IronRuby developers

Some experienced IronRuby developers may be available to debug a problem with you. Watching over their shoulder can help a newcomer to the code base learn debugging tips and techniques. To make this a fruitful exercise, please follow the following guidelines:
*         Send email to ironruby-core at rubyforge.org<mailto:ironruby-core at rubyforge.org> asking if any experienced developer is available to help you
*         Ensure that you can build and successfully run all of the RubySpec<http://wiki.github.com/ironruby/ironruby/rubyspec> tests.
*         Restrict the problems to pure Ruby code which is known to work with MRI. Ensuring a clean working baseline functionality in MRI ensures that the problem truly in IronRuby. Without a known clean MRI baseline, the problem can be in a component other than IronRuby which you are as well-equipped to diagnose as anyone else.
*         Set up a clean repro. Spend time ensuring that it is not a configuration issue, and that the problem can be easily reproduced on other machines. Document detailed information about your platform, version of IronRuby, and the steps to repro the problem.
*         Do basic debugging by yourself beforehand. This will ensure that you get the most out of the session and can keep up with what's going on over Live Meeting.
*         Set up Live Meeting<http://livemeeting.com> on your machine, which will allow you to watch the debugging session.
*         Add the experienced developer as a friend/buddy in some Chat program so that you can ask questions during the debugging session.
Thanks,
Shri

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