[akkartik]

For the past couple of years I’ve been researching ways to write software that make it easier for newcomers to understand rather than for insiders to maintain. (https://lobste.rs/c/rue8pf)

Currently as part of that larger project, I've been improving my zoomable UI for browsing program traces: https://github.com/akkartik/mu/blob/9be4a67f42/100trace_brow.... I plan to turn this into a self-contained tool. All it requires is for logging frameworks to start each log line with a number indicating depth. When you open it on such a log file it shows just the highest-level information, allowing you to drill down into details in specific parts of the log.

I think such a UI can be a strong alternative to a debugger. Instead of running the program at interaction time you first collect a trace of the program's execution. You get time-travel debugging for a fraction of the infrastructural cost if you require manual program changes to add logging.