remote host testing expectations re multiple simultaneous connections

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