5 ms·

I too got spoiled by Visual C++’s debugger. Nothing on other platforms combines the power and ease of use.

anamax 4y ago
Visual C++'s debugger is so good that it changed how I wrote code. It let me debug things that I couldn't debug with a lesser tool. That's why I quit using it and went back to debugging with print. Print-debugging limits my cleverness and forces me to think about what's going on.
DeathArrow 4y ago
Debugging C# in Visual Studio is at least as good.
- carlmr 4y ago
  Visual Studio is plainly the best IDE I've ever worked in. It may be sluggish at times, but whether I was coding in C#, C++ or Python, autocompletion, debugging, and refactoring always worked really well. The only problem is my current projects are all on Linux.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    My current role is mostly done by Windows people (my direct boss is a Windows guy, although his boss runs Linux at work) and I took it while interactions were minimised due to COVID so we decided I should run Windows on the work laptop. So I figured "When in Rome" and I have Visual Studio and I expected I would come away saying this is pretty cool but I want a modal editor. Nope, it's terrible. It does have a debugger that is better than I'm used to, but I spend very little time in a debugger, what we're doing isn't rocket surgery. Visual Studio apparently doesn't understand how git works or doesn't understand how files work, so e.g. I'll modify somefile.cs in one tab to fix something, compile, verify my fix worked, go to the Git tab and Visual Studio is wide-eyed. What could I want? There aren't any changes. Yes there are VS, you just saved them, to a file. So I exit VS and restart it. "Oh!" realises Visual Studio, somebody changed the file. Yes, it was you. You wrote to the file, when I hit save. That's what files are Visual Studio, why is this hard? Now I can commit my change. C# is a much better language than I expected, PowerShell is a much worse language than I expected. Lots of surprises, good and bad, but I think "Visual Studio is bad at the thing it's for" was the largest surprise.
    - Ygg2 4y ago
      Try Jetbrains Rider. It's miles ahead of VS, but don't expect a miracle.
    - ccouzens 4y ago
      Just because you're using an IDE doesn't mean you can't use a second tool simultaneously. It sounds like using a second program to add and commit files to git would work better for you. (I've not spent much time with visual studio)
    - masterofmisc 4y ago
      Yeah, I use Visual Studio for code editing and TortoiseGit for GIT related stuff (checkin/pull/push)
    - carlmr 4y ago
      Can't really comment on git functionality, I've always used the CLI for that.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      > what we're doing isn't rocket surgery Nor brain science either, I'd hazard.
      - tialaramex 4y ago
        Well, the University where I work (used to?) employ the founder of BBS: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain... Although that's mostly because BBS was ahead of its time rather than because of the topic specifically. BBS looks a lot more like how you'd design such a thing if you started out in an era with the Web, rather than dusty printed journals, even though BBS actually is a printed journal and started in 1978. Anyway, Stevan Harnad actually taught a class I took (as a postgrad, so not pass-or-fail, I was just showing up because it was interesting). Cognitive Science is definitely Brain Science, but it's true that I am not employed to actually do that.
    - fsloth 4y ago
cmroanirgo 4y ago
I don't disagree, but borland c++ and turbo pascal both had excellent debuggers, the latter is still working under the guise of lazarus (but i'm not a fan of the gui). What spoiled me in vc++ was remote debugging, statement completion & type/object browsers.
inglor_cz 4y ago
I worked both in Visual C++ and in phpStorm+XDebug and I liked the latter more. For MSVC, I had to write some visualization files (.natvis), phpStorm displays everything just fine.

Visual C++'s debugger is so good that it changed how I wrote code. It let me debug things that I couldn't debug with a lesser tool. That's why I quit using it and went back to debugging with print. Print-debugging limits my cleverness and forces me to think about what's going on.

DeathArrow 4y ago

Debugging C# in Visual Studio is at least as good.

carlmr 4y ago
Visual Studio is plainly the best IDE I've ever worked in. It may be sluggish at times, but whether I was coding in C#, C++ or Python, autocompletion, debugging, and refactoring always worked really well. The only problem is my current projects are all on Linux.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  My current role is mostly done by Windows people (my direct boss is a Windows guy, although his boss runs Linux at work) and I took it while interactions were minimised due to COVID so we decided I should run Windows on the work laptop. So I figured "When in Rome" and I have Visual Studio and I expected I would come away saying this is pretty cool but I want a modal editor. Nope, it's terrible. It does have a debugger that is better than I'm used to, but I spend very little time in a debugger, what we're doing isn't rocket surgery. Visual Studio apparently doesn't understand how git works or doesn't understand how files work, so e.g. I'll modify somefile.cs in one tab to fix something, compile, verify my fix worked, go to the Git tab and Visual Studio is wide-eyed. What could I want? There aren't any changes. Yes there are VS, you just saved them, to a file. So I exit VS and restart it. "Oh!" realises Visual Studio, somebody changed the file. Yes, it was you. You wrote to the file, when I hit save. That's what files are Visual Studio, why is this hard? Now I can commit my change. C# is a much better language than I expected, PowerShell is a much worse language than I expected. Lots of surprises, good and bad, but I think "Visual Studio is bad at the thing it's for" was the largest surprise.
  - Ygg2 4y ago
    Try Jetbrains Rider. It's miles ahead of VS, but don't expect a miracle.
  - ccouzens 4y ago
    Just because you're using an IDE doesn't mean you can't use a second tool simultaneously. It sounds like using a second program to add and commit files to git would work better for you. (I've not spent much time with visual studio)
  - masterofmisc 4y ago
    Yeah, I use Visual Studio for code editing and TortoiseGit for GIT related stuff (checkin/pull/push)
  - carlmr 4y ago
    Can't really comment on git functionality, I've always used the CLI for that.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > what we're doing isn't rocket surgery Nor brain science either, I'd hazard.
    - tialaramex 4y ago
      Well, the University where I work (used to?) employ the founder of BBS: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain... Although that's mostly because BBS was ahead of its time rather than because of the topic specifically. BBS looks a lot more like how you'd design such a thing if you started out in an era with the Web, rather than dusty printed journals, even though BBS actually is a printed journal and started in 1978. Anyway, Stevan Harnad actually taught a class I took (as a postgrad, so not pass-or-fail, I was just showing up because it was interesting). Cognitive Science is definitely Brain Science, but it's true that I am not employed to actually do that.
  - fsloth 4y ago

cmroanirgo 4y ago

I don't disagree, but borland c++ and turbo pascal both had excellent debuggers, the latter is still working under the guise of lazarus (but i'm not a fan of the gui). What spoiled me in vc++ was remote debugging, statement completion & type/object browsers.

inglor_cz 4y ago

I worked both in Visual C++ and in phpStorm+XDebug and I liked the latter more. For MSVC, I had to write some visualization files (.natvis), phpStorm displays everything just fine.