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0 pointsbichiliad4y ago0 comments

I think print statements are actually useful in ways that typical debuggers are not meant to be; they make it easy to show changes over time, and they provide a tight feedback loop between observing the value of some data and performing interactions that update that data. For example, if you wanted to know how a coordinate calculation changed as you scrolled the page, print statements would be more useful than a debugger. I don't think this is exclusively why debuggers get less use, but I think that print statements aren't inherently a thing to optimize away from.

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optymizer4y ago

That and concurrent execution is where I've found print statements to be most useful, but nothing prevents a debugger from keeping track of some value over time and then display those values on the UI, just like one would with a print statement.

My view is that using print statements is absolutely a subpar method of debugging and that we should, in fact, optimize away from it by creating better debuggers.

wonnage4y ago

Anything you can do with a print statement can also be done with a logpoint, if your debugger has that concept. Logpoints can also sometimes be simulated with conditional breakpoints (log something and then return false).

The debugger saves so much time wasted recompiling/reloading with new print statements, IMO it's strictly better on every aspect.

Spivak4y ago

I've been dreaming forever about writing a debugger that basically just produces a timeline/log (branching in the case of threads or processes) of program execution, you can drill down the stack or into a loop at any point, and surfaces the trace of your code as opposed to 17 layers of library indirection.

tedmielczarek4y ago

I mentioned this in a different thread, but I'd recommend you take a look at Pernosco, a debugging tool written by the original author of rr: https://pernos.co/about/callees/

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