Separate 'debug' and 'release' builds?

Question

I think it's better to release the version of the software which your developers actually tested; I therefore tend to delete the 'debug' target from the project/makefile, so that there's only one version that can be built (and tested, and debugged, and released).

For a similar reason, I don't use 'assertions' (see also Are assertions always bad? ...).

One person there argued that the reason for a 'debug' version is that it's easier to debug: but, I counter-argued that you may eventually want to support and debug whatever it is you released, and so you need to build a release which you can if necessary debug ... this may mean enabling debug symbols, and disabling some optimizations, even in the 'release' build.

Someone else said that "this is such a bad idea"; it's a policy I evolved some years ago, having been burned by:

• Some developers' testing their debug but not release versions
• Some developers' writing bugs which show up only in the release version
• The company's releasing the release version after inadequate testing (is it ever entirely adequate?)
• Being called on to debug the release version

Since then I've seen more than one other development shop follow this practice (i.e. not have separate debug and release builds).

What's your policy?

Answer 1

Having separate debug and release builds is a good idea, because it does make development easier.

But debug builds should be for development only, not for testing. You test release builds only. And you don't use developers to test those builds, you use testers.

It's a simple policy that gives the best of both worlds, IMO.

Edit: In response to a comment, I think it's obvious that debug and release builds (can) generate different code. Think "-DDEBUG" vs. "-DNDEBUG", and "#if defined(DEBUG)", etc.

So it's vital that you test the code that you end up shipping. If you do generate different code in debug and release builds, that means testing twice - regardless of whether or not it's tested by the same person.

Debug symbols are not that big an issue, however. Always build with debugging symbols, keep a copy of the unstripped binary, but release a stripped binary. As long as you tag each binary with a build number somehow, you should always be able to identify which unstripped binary corresponds to the stripped binary that you have to debug...

How to strip binaries and load symbols in your debugger from an external source is platform-dependent.