[andirk]

I learned C++ on CodeWarrior (and then vi) and its debugger made me require a debugger whenever I write code. I am currently using PHPStorm (or any JetBrains) and its XDebug debugger.

For Javascript, I use Brave/Chrome debugger.

...And I should use logs more.

I am always in shock when I see people work on large projects with no debugger. I do printf/console.log all the time but HOW DO PEOPLE NOT STEP-STEP-STEP??

[turtledragonfly]

> HOW DO PEOPLE NOT STEP-STEP-STEP

I think I have felt some of what you are feeling. The debugger is ... seductive (: For one thing, it is an educational experience, as you step along you are learning what your program is actually doing, which is a good mental checkpoint, especially when I was a more junior developer. I think a debugger as an educational tool is a big point in its favor. And so you may develop a positive relationship with your debugger, and want to bring it with you wherever you go.

But you may find, as I did, that the sparkle of that relationship fades somewhat in time. You will be better at knowing what the code does, without needing the debugger to tell you. You will hit situations where the debugger cannot help you, or is less helpful than the alternatives. You will get better at structuring your code so certain classes of problems simply don't happen as much, rather than using a debugger to peek-and-poke to fix things all the time. You may find the debugger to be a relatively exhausting high-touch real-time experience, compared to thinking about issues more at your leisure, or getting a larger understanding from other sources.

And so, with experience, and hopefully with an open mind, the debugger will settle into its proper station, in the pantheon of your various debugging aids. Not bad, but not the end-all-be-all either.

I am being somewhat flowery in my language, but all I am saying is: it's okay to rely on the debugger, at some stages. Give it time. Just don't forget about the alternatives or denigrate them needlessly. You want to build a big happy family of technologies and techniques (many of them residing solely in your mind) that can all work together.

[Scubabear68]

“HOW DO PEOPLE NOT STEP-STEP-STEP”.

For me it’s because that is slow, tedious and exhausting. Often you need to cover a lot of code surface area to find a bug.

Worse, the bug may be something reported in production in a giant pile of code.

A good set of logs will go a very long way to at least narrowing down where the bad behavior is coming from, and is generally scalabale.

The debugger is useful, but generally only at the extremes of “new to the code, totally clueless” and “really advanced bug that I need to bring out the big guns for”.

The logging approach clicks in really fast the minute you’re talking about a multiprocess program, being microservices or just plain old SOA.