This is certainly my experience. I have had quite an eye opening experience upon this subject. In recent times I have written java and TSQL. In both situations a debugger was not availible. At first I floundered and flapped ever time I hit a problem. Soon my old skill started to return. I started writting tighter code, with suitable debugging tools built within it. I used program by contract to ensure validity of data entering and exiting methods, I wrote validation methods as part of my objects to be called in times of problems, I wrote extensive debugging output toggleable at runtime. Now I am back in perl land (for a time) I have my debugger back but find I use it less as my code is tighter.

Anything that does not kill your project makes you stronger
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Zigster