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Sometimes stepping through is faster than adding in trace temporarily. I say that as someone who almost always uses trace. This is a terrible interview question

Sometimes stepping through is faster than adding in trace temporarily. I say that as someone who almost always uses trace. This is a terrible interview question if "yes I use a debugger" is the wrong answer. What matters is if the person can get the job done, not if they'd do it the same way as you.

melling 12y ago
There's nothing wrong with using a debugger. If you tell me you can't or won't solve a problem without a debugger, well ...
- anon1385 12y ago
  You are shifting the goalposts. The original commenter just stated that they didn't feel enthusiastic about using a language without a debugger. Not that they couldn't solve a problem without a debugger. The type of argument you are making has been used throughout the history of computing as a reason to avoid using computers to solve problems. For literally any problem that is solvable by computers, you can make an argument about how using a computer to do it means you lose the ability to solve it by hand. From accounting to engineering to programming to administration to physics to writing, in all these areas (and more) older practitioners have bemoaned the use of computers to quickly and accurately solve problems that they have spent a lifetime mastering how to solve by hand. The reason for their opposition is pretty clear. I don't know why this type of attitude is so prevalent among some sections of the programmer community. Programmers are the people who should most of all appreciate the ability of computers to automate tedious and error prone tasks. Yet for a certain class of easily automatable programming problems there is a group of programmers who resist very strongly the use of computers to automate. Maybe it's just the same old issue of not wanting to admit that something they spent a long time mastering isn't very useful anymore and that they are getting outcompeted in the marketplace. I think there is a bit of unpleasant machismo about it as well though; the idea that you aren't a 'real' programmer unless you eschew a certain level of automation (be that high level languages or compilers or version control or automated build systems or syntax highlighting or tools to refactor code etc).
  - melling 12y ago
    No, I didn't shift the goal post. I added an extra sentence to fix the "parse error". I use a Xcode debugger when it works, for example. However, I'm also able to effectively debug my code when Apple breaks it. I've been dropped in to debug JavaScript in IE7, for instance, and told that I couldn't install Chrome to debug it because it "wasn't a corporate standard". Someone who wants a complete ecosystem before they can be effective strikes me as a problem.
lsaferite 12y ago
I'm fairly certain I would have zero desire to work someplace that considers 'Yes, i use a debugger' the wrong answer.
- melling 12y ago
  That wasn't the question.
coldtea 12y ago
>Sometimes stepping through is faster than adding in trace temporarily. Using trace? ... Real programmers use print statements...

melling 12y ago

There's nothing wrong with using a debugger. If you tell me you can't or won't solve a problem without a debugger, well ...

anon1385 12y ago
You are shifting the goalposts. The original commenter just stated that they didn't feel enthusiastic about using a language without a debugger. Not that they couldn't solve a problem without a debugger. The type of argument you are making has been used throughout the history of computing as a reason to avoid using computers to solve problems. For literally any problem that is solvable by computers, you can make an argument about how using a computer to do it means you lose the ability to solve it by hand. From accounting to engineering to programming to administration to physics to writing, in all these areas (and more) older practitioners have bemoaned the use of computers to quickly and accurately solve problems that they have spent a lifetime mastering how to solve by hand. The reason for their opposition is pretty clear. I don't know why this type of attitude is so prevalent among some sections of the programmer community. Programmers are the people who should most of all appreciate the ability of computers to automate tedious and error prone tasks. Yet for a certain class of easily automatable programming problems there is a group of programmers who resist very strongly the use of computers to automate. Maybe it's just the same old issue of not wanting to admit that something they spent a long time mastering isn't very useful anymore and that they are getting outcompeted in the marketplace. I think there is a bit of unpleasant machismo about it as well though; the idea that you aren't a 'real' programmer unless you eschew a certain level of automation (be that high level languages or compilers or version control or automated build systems or syntax highlighting or tools to refactor code etc).
- melling 12y ago
  No, I didn't shift the goal post. I added an extra sentence to fix the "parse error". I use a Xcode debugger when it works, for example. However, I'm also able to effectively debug my code when Apple breaks it. I've been dropped in to debug JavaScript in IE7, for instance, and told that I couldn't install Chrome to debug it because it "wasn't a corporate standard". Someone who wants a complete ecosystem before they can be effective strikes me as a problem.

lsaferite 12y ago

I'm fairly certain I would have zero desire to work someplace that considers 'Yes, i use a debugger' the wrong answer.

melling 12y ago
That wasn't the question.

coldtea 12y ago

>Sometimes stepping through is faster than adding in trace temporarily. Using trace? ... Real programmers use print statements...