remote host testing expectations re multiple simultaneous connections

[Sandra Loosemore <sandra at codesourcery dot com>]

I've noticed that there are several gdb.mi tests that start GDB before 
building the test program, like this bit of code from mi-cli.exp:

gdb_exit
if [mi_gdb_start] {
    continue
}

standard_testfile basics.c

if  { [gdb_compile "${srcdir}/${subdir}/${srcfile}" "${binfile}" 
executable {debug}] != "" } {
     untested "failed to compile"
     return -1
}

mi_gdb_test "-interpreter-exec" \
  {\^error,msg="-interpreter-exec: Usage: -interpreter-exec interp 
command"} \
  "-interpreter-exec with no arguments"

E.g. there's an implicit expectation that when testing on a remote host, 
it can start GDB and leave it running and waiting to accept GDB commands 
while running some other shell commands to build the test program on a 
different channel to the same remote host.  Is this a reasonable 
expectation that is documented somewhere?  Or are the test cases that 
are structured like this just broken?  :-S  If the latter I will submit 
a patch to fix them.

-Sandra