I applaud the efforts to make gdb-mode more friendly to novices.
However, as as 20+ year users of 'M-x gdb' in emacs, I, too, find recent changes to the default 'M-x gdb' behavior frustrating and counter-productive for my own work: I miss inline output in the *gud* frame: I am daily annoyed at output opening a new window I didn't ask for, which I must manually close or 'Ctrl-x o' (other-window) past, since I am often in 'emacs -nw' (No mouse) on remote machines. I am annoyed that the new window-that-I-never-asked-for won't let me 'Ctrl-x b' (switch-to-buffer) to the buffer I actually want to see.
I understand that novices tend to use print-debugging and the new input/output buffer can be useful to them. I appreciate that the default configuration should be optimized for novices doing native development in a windowed environment.
But please understand that many professionals develop code where stdout-in-its-own-window is counter-productive. (In my daily use, the only output is from the testing framework I use.) Please understand that not everyone has access to a mouse when doing remote and/or embedded development.
So please, gdb-mode maintainers, if you are going to change the default behaviour of gdb-mode, give us an easy way to get back access the old output-in-the-*gud*-buffer behavior, which is more productive for some of us professionals.
Thanks for your consideration,
--Glenn