3 ms·

I’ve definitely seen an undercurrent of “I don’t need the crutch of a debugger” sort of attitudes online over the years, never really made sense to me. It can b

I’ve definitely seen an undercurrent of “I don’t need the crutch of a debugger” sort of attitudes online over the years, never really made sense to me. It can be painful pairing with someone who keeps adding print statements one at a time and repeating the 15 step process to get to them when they could have put in a breakpoint right out of the gate. I still print stuff plenty, but when the source of an issue is not immediately obvious I’m reaching for the debugger asap.

lolinder 2y ago
> It can be painful pairing with someone who keeps adding print statements one at a time and repeating the 15 step process to get to them when they could have put in a breakpoint right out of the gate. This does sound painful, but this is not what most people who advocate for print debugging are advocating for. If I'm only going to add one print statement, that's obviously a place where a breakpoint would serve. When I do print debugging, it's precisely because I haven't narrowed down the problem that far yet—I may have ten theories, not one, so I need ten log statements to test all ten theories at the same time. Print debugging is most useful when the incorrect behavior could be in one of many pieces of a complex system, and you can use it to rapidly narrow down which of those pieces is actually the culprit.
elegantlie 2y ago
I wouldn't categorize debuggers as a crutch, for "lazy minds", or anything like that. Everyone should use the tools they feel most productive with. However, at least personally, I've also felt that there was a lot of truth to that Ken Thompson quote. Something along the lines of: "when your program has a bug, the first thing you should do is turn off the computer and think deeply." Basically, a bug when where your mental model of the code has diverged from what you've actually written. I think about the symptoms I'm observing, and I try to reason about where in the code it could happen and what it could be. The suggestion in the parent comment that I'm just too stupid to look into or learn about debuggers is so condescending and just plain wrong. I've looked into them, I know how to use them, I can use them when I want to. I simply tend not to, because they don't solve any problem that I have. Also, the implication that I don't use completely unrelated tools like profilers is equally asinine. Debuggers and profilers are two completely different tools that solve completely different problems. I use profilers almost every day of my career because it solves an actual problem that I have.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  "The suggestion in the parent comment that I'm just too stupid" If your insecurity leads you to misrepresent what someone actually said so disgustingly, maybe Hacker News isn't for you.

lolinder 2y ago

> It can be painful pairing with someone who keeps adding print statements one at a time and repeating the 15 step process to get to them when they could have put in a breakpoint right out of the gate. This does sound painful, but this is not what most people who advocate for print debugging are advocating for. If I'm only going to add one print statement, that's obviously a place where a breakpoint would serve. When I do print debugging, it's precisely because I haven't narrowed down the problem that far yet—I may have ten theories, not one, so I need ten log statements to test all ten theories at the same time. Print debugging is most useful when the incorrect behavior could be in one of many pieces of a complex system, and you can use it to rapidly narrow down which of those pieces is actually the culprit.

elegantlie 2y ago

I wouldn't categorize debuggers as a crutch, for "lazy minds", or anything like that. Everyone should use the tools they feel most productive with. However, at least personally, I've also felt that there was a lot of truth to that Ken Thompson quote. Something along the lines of: "when your program has a bug, the first thing you should do is turn off the computer and think deeply." Basically, a bug when where your mental model of the code has diverged from what you've actually written. I think about the symptoms I'm observing, and I try to reason about where in the code it could happen and what it could be. The suggestion in the parent comment that I'm just too stupid to look into or learn about debuggers is so condescending and just plain wrong. I've looked into them, I know how to use them, I can use them when I want to. I simply tend not to, because they don't solve any problem that I have. Also, the implication that I don't use completely unrelated tools like profilers is equally asinine. Debuggers and profilers are two completely different tools that solve completely different problems. I use profilers almost every day of my career because it solves an actual problem that I have.

llm_nerd 2y ago
"The suggestion in the parent comment that I'm just too stupid" If your insecurity leads you to misrepresent what someone actually said so disgustingly, maybe Hacker News isn't for you.