<story><title>Print Debugging Should Go Away</title><url>https://robert.ocallahan.org/2021/04/print-debugging-should-go-away.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>db48x</author><text>&amp;gt; it works for every language&lt;p&gt;This is really the problem. Nobody has spent time and money to make debugging _good_ in the languages you use. Few people pay for good tools any more, and only a tiny fraction of users ever contribute improvements to the open–source tools they use (paid or otherwise). So the average debugger hasn’t gotten better since the 90s.&lt;p&gt;I do programming in multiple languages too. In those where I can use RR and Pernosco, I use them every time. In those where I can’t, I miss RR and Pernosco every single time.</text></item><item><author>falsaberN1</author><text>You can pry my debug prints from my cold, dead hands.&lt;p&gt;I get the point this person is making, but at times (and depending on language) it&amp;#x27;s the fastest and most efficient option. &amp;quot;Oh, the value is not what I expected&amp;quot; -&amp;gt; fix -&amp;gt; &amp;quot;value is good after testing, can remove the debug print&amp;quot;.
It&amp;#x27;s not elegant, yes, but it does the job with zero preparation and &lt;i&gt;works for every language&lt;/i&gt;.
Now if things are so hopeless the debug print doesn&amp;#x27;t even work, then yes, get a proper debugger.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jjoonathan</author><text>Yep. The other day I was:&lt;p&gt;* Debugging an 8 bit microcontroller in-circuit with an IDE, conditional breakpoints, step in&amp;#x2F;out&amp;#x2F;over, full stack visibility, and the ability to manually poke at values&amp;#x2F;memory&amp;#x2F;io&lt;p&gt;* Debugging an AWS lambda function with printf and high latency logs&lt;p&gt;It doesn&amp;#x27;t matter how hip, how modern, how fast, or how big the environment is. What matters is whether or not the ecosystem cares enough to make debugging nice.</text></comment>
<story><title>Print Debugging Should Go Away</title><url>https://robert.ocallahan.org/2021/04/print-debugging-should-go-away.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>db48x</author><text>&amp;gt; it works for every language&lt;p&gt;This is really the problem. Nobody has spent time and money to make debugging _good_ in the languages you use. Few people pay for good tools any more, and only a tiny fraction of users ever contribute improvements to the open–source tools they use (paid or otherwise). So the average debugger hasn’t gotten better since the 90s.&lt;p&gt;I do programming in multiple languages too. In those where I can use RR and Pernosco, I use them every time. In those where I can’t, I miss RR and Pernosco every single time.</text></item><item><author>falsaberN1</author><text>You can pry my debug prints from my cold, dead hands.&lt;p&gt;I get the point this person is making, but at times (and depending on language) it&amp;#x27;s the fastest and most efficient option. &amp;quot;Oh, the value is not what I expected&amp;quot; -&amp;gt; fix -&amp;gt; &amp;quot;value is good after testing, can remove the debug print&amp;quot;.
It&amp;#x27;s not elegant, yes, but it does the job with zero preparation and &lt;i&gt;works for every language&lt;/i&gt;.
Now if things are so hopeless the debug print doesn&amp;#x27;t even work, then yes, get a proper debugger.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sillysaurusx</author><text>Why isn&amp;#x27;t print debugging good? Seems good to me.&lt;p&gt;As pg said, it&amp;#x27;s like scrubbing dishes with your fingertips: rarely discussed, highly effective.</text></comment>