I have a different background than the author. I did take the time to learn the debugger, for multiple IDEs, and I've spent a *lot* of time in that rabbit hole.

I have a different background than the author. I did take the time to learn the debugger, for multiple IDEs, and I've spent a *lot* of time in that rabbit hole. Not to discourage those using a debugger but it really was, for me, a hole. I could spend hours in there feeling productive, and then a few more hours not feeling productive. And after the journey I didn't feel like I knew the code better than before - at least not compared to the time spent. Now I'm a println debugger and I think more about where I'm putting statements, which helps me understand the code at a higher level. I even have a trick that aids this technique a ton. I have a snippet for print line statements that adds "// FIXME: (ABC) testing" to all lines, with ABC here being my initials. Then a git pre-commit hook which won't let me commit that code. Also searching the codebase for that string shows all of my breadcrumbs, like individual breakpoints at all the places I care about.