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by foobarian 1888 days ago
The problem is that it's not just a matter of "learning the debugger for Java." In practice there are many different projects that configure debugging many different ways, and it doesn't matter that you know which keys to press in IntelliJ if it will take you an hour to figure out how to attach it to the project. This speaks to OP's point, where it's hard to use a real debugger to casually investigate random projects.

Having said that, it is absolutely a requirement when working on a project for any length of time (especially professionally) to set up and figure out a debugging environment, because it is significantly more productive than printing. But the startup cost is certainly there.
2 comments
zmmmmm 1888 days ago
The java case is actually pretty universal ... you run the JVM with debugging enabled (fixed string of flags) and then tell your IDE to attach to the JVM on the port you gave it. You don't need compileable source, can be on a remote server, different OS etc - if you have just the source for the bit you want to debug you can set a breakpoint in it and it'll stop there.

Being able to debug third party code in remote / hostile environments (even when its mixed with proprietary vendor code) is one of the things I like about Java.

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foobarian 1888 days ago
The Java case is arguably the least difficult out there thanks to reasons you outline. But still, the other day I had to debug a Gradle plugin written in Java. It's possible! But it took an hour or so of effort to figure out which options to use and which program to give them to.
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eitland 1888 days ago
> The problem is that it's not just a matter of "learning the debugger for Java."

In the Java case, for stanalone projects (i.e. not something deployed on a server) an if it is your own project and you don't do anything unreasonable it is mostly just set a breakpoint and hit "run with debugging".

Probably the least painful debugging experience I know.

Doing it for Tomcat/Tomee was slightly more advanced IMO but still utterly trivial compared to wrangling css or js ;-)

There are reasons why we "old folks" like Java so much despite its verboseness.

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