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Man discussions in this thread really seem to be between those who know their debugger, and those who don't and doesn't want to learn. Is there anyone out ther
by amarant 6y ago
Man discussions in this thread really seem to be between those who know their debugger, and those who don't and doesn't want to learn.
Is there anyone out there who is actually familiar with a debugger for the tool they're using and still prefer print debugging?
No?
That settles that then...
- friend-monoid 6y agoComing from embedded Linux programming, I gotta say sometimes (for easier problems) the overhead in altering the init and spinning up a gdbserver is too much; just pushing a few prints to debug something is easier. However - just having learned about rr, which seems like an amazing tool - I think that can breakpoint might change...
- simiones 6y agoDoes "print debugging" include debug logging? If yes, then I think it's absurd to claim that debuggers can replace debug logging entirely. I for one use both print debugging and actual debuggers (I've used the C# VS debugger, windbg, Java debugging in Eclipse, NetBeans, and IntelliJ, CLI gdb and pdb, Emacs GUD for gdb, pdb and Go delve, Emacs edb and the CCL debugger from SLIME). Sometimes it's awesome to point a debugger at a core dump and fix a year-old memory leak, or just see windbg point out a deadlock involving 5 locks in 2 different processes. Other times it's awesome to interpret debug logs and figure out a how a flow in a customer setup got interleaved and produced a race condition two weeks ago, which is causing a crash today.
- amarant 5y agoNo no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant print debugging can't replace the debugger. Of course a debugger can't replace the need for logs entirely!
- simiones 5y agoOh, then we are agreed! The article is in fact claiming that a debugger can replace print debugging entirely, that's why I read your comment in this same vein.