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> Why don't people just use a debugger? I only speak for myself, but I find that time spent inside a debugger is "lost", and bound to be re-spent again and aga

> Why don't people just use a debugger? I only speak for myself, but I find that time spent inside a debugger is "lost", and bound to be re-spent again and again if you ever find new problems with the same code. I pretty much prefer to add assertions, logging and comments to my program, that will stay there and make further re-reads easier and more useful. As a matter of principle, I never use a debugger (except for assembly code, but that's rare nowadays).

svantana 6y ago
Asserts are great, but when they fail, you still need to figure out why it happened. Nice environments allow you to debug the state at the point of assertion, python certainly doesn't make that convenient.
mixmastamyk 6y ago
Agreed, and tests too.
silon42 6y ago
+1 Agreed. Unless you can immediately see the problem from back-trace and local variables, stepping through with the debugger is often a waste of time compared to adding some logging.
haram_masala 6y ago
Then you are either using a bad debugger, or you're not using one properly. A good, fully-featured debugger allows you to store sessions and configurations for various efforts and problems you're trying to diagnose, along with your notes and links to relevant issues.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > Then you are either using a bad debugger, or you're not using one properly. You are certainly right, as I barely ever use a debugger and it is always an annoying experience. Can you suggest such good debuggers for C, Julia and Python? Sounds like these "sessions and configurations" are important, and thus they should be formally part of the program, committed to its public repository for all to see and use. I call these things "tests" and write them using the same language as the rest of the program, and run them frequently to be sure that they don't get out of sync with the program itself.

svantana 6y ago

Asserts are great, but when they fail, you still need to figure out why it happened. Nice environments allow you to debug the state at the point of assertion, python certainly doesn't make that convenient.

mixmastamyk 6y ago

Agreed, and tests too.

silon42 6y ago

+1 Agreed. Unless you can immediately see the problem from back-trace and local variables, stepping through with the debugger is often a waste of time compared to adding some logging.

haram_masala 6y ago

Then you are either using a bad debugger, or you're not using one properly. A good, fully-featured debugger allows you to store sessions and configurations for various efforts and problems you're trying to diagnose, along with your notes and links to relevant issues.

enriquto 6y ago
> Then you are either using a bad debugger, or you're not using one properly. You are certainly right, as I barely ever use a debugger and it is always an annoying experience. Can you suggest such good debuggers for C, Julia and Python? Sounds like these "sessions and configurations" are important, and thus they should be formally part of the program, committed to its public repository for all to see and use. I call these things "tests" and write them using the same language as the rest of the program, and run them frequently to be sure that they don't get out of sync with the program itself.