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by sebastialonso 1914 days ago
What I imagine Macha is arguing for is that the cost of using print is extremely small, smaller at least than breakpoints.

No one is saying breakpoints are useless, sometimes printing is 'cheaper' in time and effort in order to locate the region code of code in which using breakpoints is cheaper.
2 comments
Macha 1914 days ago
Yes, print() and breakpoints are different tools with different uses and there's cases where one is superior to the other. This is why some tools now offer logpoints, which are basically print() inserted via a breakpoint UI rather than in your code where you can forget to remove them
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kyawzazaw 1914 days ago
Oh please tell me about those tools.
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maccard 1914 days ago
Visual studio does trace points [0]

[0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/debugger/using...

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Macha 1914 days ago
VS Code and Firefox Developer Tools are the two I'm aware of with actual support. Also some tools you can adhoc it as a conditional breakpoint by basically putting "print(whatever); return false" as the condition
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maccard 1914 days ago
> the cost of using print is extremely small, smaller at least than breakpoints.

I don't think it is, at all. The cost of using print is re-running your applciation with a code change, whereas the cost of a breakpoint is re-running your application with a breakpoint. Clicking in a gutter in an editor, pressing a keyboard shortcut, or typing "b <line number>" into your debugger is no more time or effort than adding a print statement, and re-running your program.

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