I specifically meant that the article was largely an appeal to authority, not that the practice of not using debuggers is itself based on appeal to authority.
Having said that, I find your argument here pretty weird. I use debuggers because they are useful to me, not because I of quotes about them from famous programmers.
>I use debuggers because they are useful to me, not because I of quotes about them from famous programmers.
Which is an equally fallacious reason to use them (scientifically wise) as appeal to authority.
"Useful to me" doesn't mean anything by itself. Something else could have been more useful to you, but without measuring it appropriately (just some personal anecdotes with trying some thing and then another and seeing which you prefer or which seems to you to give you better results, with no real measuring system or rigor), you'd never know. And the industry would never know which direction to invest, and how young programmers should be taught best -- not just about debuggers but about almost everything.
You're making a broader point, which is fine and all. But your comments would be just as relevant if I said, "I pull out shared code into functions because that technique is useful to me". Your point is so broad that it's like a tautology. I really don't lose any sleep over the foundations of my approach to my work being unsupported by rigorous studies. You can feel free to be a science maximalist and run studies on whether pulling code out into functions is actually useful and all the rest of the approaches we've developed over the years. Meanwhile, I'll happily carry on doing stuff that I know is useful to me, like pulling out functions and using debuggers.
