That is a problem that I prefer solving with reduced
data sets in a testing environment so that I can do
development iterations faster. Plus with error messages
that give enough context that I don't need to do a few
test runs to figure out the bad state. And yes, I know it
isn't always easy to do that. I have written my share of
programs which like to run for several hours straight. I
still prefer to work on them without a debugger.
In any case the question isn't whether or not debuggers make
any specific bug faster to solve. Of course they do.
That is their job. Once things go wrong it is usually
much faster for a competent person to get an answer with a
debugger than it is without. But using the debugger you
will never see your program and understand it in the same
way that you do without, and that makes the forest easy to
miss for the trees when it comes to design mistakes. | [reply] |