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John Carmack expressed exactly how I feel about having a good debugger. I've never heard anyone say that or comment on that, so it was nice to get confirmation

John Carmack expressed exactly how I feel about having a good debugger. I've never heard anyone say that or comment on that, so it was nice to get confirmation from a master programmer.

mrweasel 4y ago
Around 15 years ago I worked as a .Net developer, using Visual Studio, and I loved having the debugger available. I might be less clever than others here on HN, but the debugger helped me locate so many stupid mistakes extremely quickly. Sure you could just read the code an reason about the flow and structure and find the bugs that way, but that takes me much longer. After the .Net jobs I pretty much switched back to Vim, TextMate and other text editors, and frequently forgot that debuggers are available. As Carmack points out, if they are difficult to use, you'll find yourself using them much less. For some reason I've found myself in environments where IDE are seen as second rate. Like training wheels for less skilled developers, but you know what: I want a debugger, I wanted integrated into my code editor and that's good enough for a guy like Carmack, then it's good enough for me.
- labrador 4y ago
  Like he said, our brains make mistakes interpreting the code and running it our heads. Sometimes you need a debugger to see what's really going on, especially as the system becomes more complex
redthrow 4y ago
Another master programmer Linus Torvalds seems to have the opposite attitude though https://lwn.net/2000/0914/a/lt-debugger.php3 https://lwn.net/2000/0914/a/lt-debugger.php3 Wonder if there's a difference in average attitude between people who do creative stuff (e.g. games) vs people who do infrastructure type stuff (e.g. Linux kernel)
- labrador 4y ago
  Yes, but of the two, which one would you say is happier? Some people like doing it the hard way because they think a bit of suffering is good for you.
  - al_mandi 4y ago
    Furthermore, Carmack mentions that this aversion to debuggers stems from the Linux bias.

John Carmack expressed exactly how I feel about having a good debugger. I've never heard anyone say that or comment on that, so it was nice to get confirmation from a master programmer.

mrweasel 4y ago

Around 15 years ago I worked as a .Net developer, using Visual Studio, and I loved having the debugger available. I might be less clever than others here on HN, but the debugger helped me locate so many stupid mistakes extremely quickly. Sure you could just read the code an reason about the flow and structure and find the bugs that way, but that takes me much longer. After the .Net jobs I pretty much switched back to Vim, TextMate and other text editors, and frequently forgot that debuggers are available. As Carmack points out, if they are difficult to use, you'll find yourself using them much less. For some reason I've found myself in environments where IDE are seen as second rate. Like training wheels for less skilled developers, but you know what: I want a debugger, I wanted integrated into my code editor and that's good enough for a guy like Carmack, then it's good enough for me.

labrador 4y ago
Like he said, our brains make mistakes interpreting the code and running it our heads. Sometimes you need a debugger to see what's really going on, especially as the system becomes more complex

redthrow 4y ago

Another master programmer Linus Torvalds seems to have the opposite attitude though https://lwn.net/2000/0914/a/lt-debugger.php3 https://lwn.net/2000/0914/a/lt-debugger.php3 Wonder if there's a difference in average attitude between people who do creative stuff (e.g. games) vs people who do infrastructure type stuff (e.g. Linux kernel)

labrador 4y ago
Yes, but of the two, which one would you say is happier? Some people like doing it the hard way because they think a bit of suffering is good for you.
- al_mandi 4y ago
  Furthermore, Carmack mentions that this aversion to debuggers stems from the Linux bias.