[wilun]

> Only a debugger can show you the steps and conditions involved that lead to that invalid value.

No. Static analysis can and is actually what is used most of the time. Either with an automated tool, or with your brain.

Of course debugging is also needed, but the right mix between the two is needed, and you are actually doing it even if you use a debugger a lot (at least I hope so, otherwise you are probably not fixing your bugs correctly way too often).

[codedokode]

But is not breaking into a debugger and seeing the call stack often faster? Brain won't help you much if you have thousands of files and more than 100 000 LOC and with the debugger you just walk up the stack until you see where that NULL came from. And after fixing the bug, of course you can use your brain and search for similar code patterns to make sure that there is no same mistake anywhere else.