[schmidtleonard]

Yes, portability and simplicity are the best parts of printf.

> If you master printf

The skill ceiling is low. Printf only does so much.

You could rope in environmental optimization to the skill discussion -- the ability to isolate areas of functionality, replicate problems, reason about unknown state, and do the legwork so that you can quickly spin the increased amount of iteration required by a simpler debugging tool -- but by then you have thoroughly sacrificed both simplicity and portability and are far past the skill floor of a debugger.

If we assess this by looking for problems created by overcommitting to one approach or another, overcommitting to a debugger looks like burning time trying to get tooling to work on a problem that doesn't really need it while overcommitting to printf looks like spending way too much time iterating on tiny steps that could have been jumped over given better visibility. I've seen both, of course, but I tend to see more of the latter and more denial about the latter. When you're burning time fighting tools it's obvious. When you're burning time because you don't know how a tool could have saved you time, it's less obvious.

YMMV.

[PontifexMinimus]

> the ability to isolate areas of functionality

This is the key. You need to be able to narrow down where the bug is.