Are there seriously professionals out there who think debuggers are useless? That is utterly baffling to me. Logging and tests are useful, but if something unexpected happens, the debugger is absolutely the first tool I'm reaching for unless I'm dealing with remote code (e.g. on a server) or some other scenario where using a debugger is a pain.
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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No kidding! I don't think I've been without some kind of debugger since I was still just dicking around as a hobbyist. I can't even really guess, because it seems like forever. I know I didn't have access to a debugger on the VIC-20, but just when I first used one I can't say.
@firelizzard It's unreal to me. I can't fathom arguing against debuggers.
Rubymine's debugger alone makes it worth it for ruby development, let alone all the other features.
Crazy productivity booster.
I’m firmly in the print statement / console.log camp but this article convinced me to try using a debugger.
You are not alone
I tend to use print way to much especially considering the programming language I am using has a debugger built in and I dont use it nearly enough. ok I do use break so I can stop execution paired with printing but I really need to start actually using it. however yes debuggers are awesome if anyone hasn't tried one out give it a try, even if you are using a smaller lesser known language a lot of languages are more compatible than you think, I recently used windbg with the D programming language if you haven't heard of that language, exactly, so give your language of choice a few google searches and see if there are any that work.
The feature to select which line should execute next is useful (exists at least in c#'s debugger). Can be used to jump over code or to re-run code.
I rarely use the debugger with Unity because you have to switch the project to debug mode(takes 10+ seconds and runs slower)
I love a good debugger. When you need to deep dive there is no subsitute IMO