6 ms·

I don't understand - how is using a debugger a waste of time? I don't often use a debugger, but they have proven to be useful in a lot of cases.

by barbs 6y ago

DavidWoof 6y ago
Not OP, and I think never using a debugger is silly, but IMO if I need a debugger to figure out a problem then I'm missing either sufficient unit tests or sufficient logging, and spending my time on that rather than in the debugger will aid future devs as well. I do think the write/debug/edit cycle is a very, very slow way to program, and I have to admit I'm suspicious when somebody tells me they spend 90% their time in the debugger (but a lot of this is dependent on type of work).
- 0x008 6y ago
  I work with big data and have to solve a lot of problems in integration or by debugging again at the a live Systeme, which you simply cannot reproduce in local unit tests. And sometimes running a single test takes like 7 minutes so I have to reduce the times I run it to save time which is why I tend to fix code in an interactive REPL in the debugger.
enriquto 6y ago
> I don't understand - how is using a debugger a waste of time? The debugger may help you understand, at some moment in time, what an unclear piece of code does. When you revisit this piece of code later, or another person finds it, your first experience with the debugger is not remembered, thus lost. This is what I meant. On the contrary, if you clarify the code and make it easier to instrumentate (by adding assertions, tests, comments, logging, etc.), it helps you right now, you in the future, and everybody else at any time. Furthermore, as a result of these efforts you will create a code that is clearer and nobody will ever need to debug to understand what it does. The only case where debugging makes sense to me is for cases that are difficult to add instrumentation to, like assembly programming, where it will be somewhat inevitable that you need to step through the instructions to see what's going on.
- horsawlarway 6y ago
  I feel like your understanding of a debugger is very limited. To me - A debugger is the instrumentation you're talking about, but created by the language/runtime developers instead of having to be remade by you, poorly, for each new project. A good watch statement is a hell of a lot more useful than an assert - even though they both try to do the same thing. Not even touching the places where a debugger solves a problem you simply can't touch with instrumentation after the fact (crash dumps immediately come to mind...). And neither of them are (in any sense) a replacement for writing a test after you solve the problem, or adding comments so the next developer has context on the why of that piece of code.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    First of all, I agree 100% that a debugger is an indispensable tool. I just say that it is often not necessary or useful when you are writing new code or reading old code that you are supposed to edit. Your example about interpreting a crash dump is definitive. I've had a fair share of using debuggers in my life, and I ended with my anti-debugging stance as a matter of fatigue, and a sense of time lost. I know what debuggers are capable of, especially regarding data visualization. But for your example of the variable watch, what are you going to watch, precisely? That the value of a variable is always positive? That it increases one by one? All these things are better served by assertions. What kind of information can be inferred by just looking at the evolution of values of a variable that is not easily formalized as an assert or a simple in-code test?
  - antoineMoPa 6y ago
    It's weird to write the test after solving the problem. You should write the test before solving the problem to get the most benefit. You can then edit + compile + run test until the test pass and normally this is shorter than the "edit+compile+start app+replicate bug manually in application+debug" loop.
    - horsawlarway 6y ago
      Depends on the bug - most times I'm breaking out the debugger it's because I have a timing/race condition somewhere, or an unexpected interaction with some other service/component. Basically - the debugger is not a tool I use if the issue is clear and reproducible. Those are also issues where it can be hard to write a correct test up front. Typically - tests are passing already, but we're seeing intermittant problems somewhere. Once we understand the interaction and the root of the problem, it's much easier to put a test in place.

I don't understand - how is using a debugger a waste of time? I don't often use a debugger, but they have proven to be useful in a lot of cases.

by barbs 6y ago

I don't understand - how is using a debugger a waste of time? I don't often use a debugger, but they have proven to be useful in a lot of cases.

DavidWoof 6y ago

Not OP, and I think never using a debugger is silly, but IMO if I need a debugger to figure out a problem then I'm missing either sufficient unit tests or sufficient logging, and spending my time on that rather than in the debugger will aid future devs as well. I do think the write/debug/edit cycle is a very, very slow way to program, and I have to admit I'm suspicious when somebody tells me they spend 90% their time in the debugger (but a lot of this is dependent on type of work).

0x008 6y ago
I work with big data and have to solve a lot of problems in integration or by debugging again at the a live Systeme, which you simply cannot reproduce in local unit tests. And sometimes running a single test takes like 7 minutes so I have to reduce the times I run it to save time which is why I tend to fix code in an interactive REPL in the debugger.

enriquto 6y ago

> I don't understand - how is using a debugger a waste of time? The debugger may help you understand, at some moment in time, what an unclear piece of code does. When you revisit this piece of code later, or another person finds it, your first experience with the debugger is not remembered, thus lost. This is what I meant. On the contrary, if you clarify the code and make it easier to instrumentate (by adding assertions, tests, comments, logging, etc.), it helps you right now, you in the future, and everybody else at any time. Furthermore, as a result of these efforts you will create a code that is clearer and nobody will ever need to debug to understand what it does. The only case where debugging makes sense to me is for cases that are difficult to add instrumentation to, like assembly programming, where it will be somewhat inevitable that you need to step through the instructions to see what's going on.

horsawlarway 6y ago
I feel like your understanding of a debugger is very limited. To me - A debugger is the instrumentation you're talking about, but created by the language/runtime developers instead of having to be remade by you, poorly, for each new project. A good watch statement is a hell of a lot more useful than an assert - even though they both try to do the same thing. Not even touching the places where a debugger solves a problem you simply can't touch with instrumentation after the fact (crash dumps immediately come to mind...). And neither of them are (in any sense) a replacement for writing a test after you solve the problem, or adding comments so the next developer has context on the why of that piece of code.
- enriquto 6y ago
  First of all, I agree 100% that a debugger is an indispensable tool. I just say that it is often not necessary or useful when you are writing new code or reading old code that you are supposed to edit. Your example about interpreting a crash dump is definitive. I've had a fair share of using debuggers in my life, and I ended with my anti-debugging stance as a matter of fatigue, and a sense of time lost. I know what debuggers are capable of, especially regarding data visualization. But for your example of the variable watch, what are you going to watch, precisely? That the value of a variable is always positive? That it increases one by one? All these things are better served by assertions. What kind of information can be inferred by just looking at the evolution of values of a variable that is not easily formalized as an assert or a simple in-code test?
- antoineMoPa 6y ago
  It's weird to write the test after solving the problem. You should write the test before solving the problem to get the most benefit. You can then edit + compile + run test until the test pass and normally this is shorter than the "edit+compile+start app+replicate bug manually in application+debug" loop.
  - horsawlarway 6y ago
    Depends on the bug - most times I'm breaking out the debugger it's because I have a timing/race condition somewhere, or an unexpected interaction with some other service/component. Basically - the debugger is not a tool I use if the issue is clear and reproducible. Those are also issues where it can be hard to write a correct test up front. Typically - tests are passing already, but we're seeing intermittant problems somewhere. Once we understand the interaction and the root of the problem, it's much easier to put a test in place.