dear Anachronism:

HLL's are justifiable for BIG programs of a half-million lines or so, but for small, less than 100K-line (don't count the comments!) code, ASM is a better and more appropriate tool.
you jump on bringing in debugging as 'unrelated' and then you include another 'unrelated' issue HLL/asm where your statement as usual is based on how things were ages ago.

What??? your ICE doesn't work on the ASM output from your compilers? I thought you'd debug the object code? That source-level debugging is no more than a primitive simulator
It is very clear that you as usual base your judgement of modern things on experiences from ages ago. There is nothong 'primitive' about source level debugging.

Just because you don't know how to use 'em to advantage, doesn't mean they're not useful. Just ask the guys at JPL!
I wish you would read before you reply, My statement was "a simulator is worthless for this type of bugs". I have no idea how you can read that as "they're not useful"

Erik