Fair point, but this is one many of us are guilty of -- and I think that is ok. First of, the Perl debugger isn't the most friendly tool in the world. Secondly, coming from many environments when attaching a debugger is not going to help much (say, an unfamilar OS such as Netware, web interfaces, or debugging the C code being loaded by a java JNI process), it is not to say that debug-by-print-statement is sin. It is this second reason that I have grown not to rely on debuggers and IDE's. Usually, I can't depend on them. I depend on runtime error checking most of the time -- and debug-by-print when things get hairy (which is not often). Plus sometimes using a debugger means your brain isn't really rapped around the code. I've been around folks who say "I need a debugger" -- but I've really learned to read code for flaws (even without prints). Using 10 different platforms and 3 or 4 different languages at work makes you do that.

In many places, debuggers are heavy hammers to wield, and print statements serve their quick-and-dirty place. In more sophisticated ways, you can write less-dirty debugger modules that can route their output to log files and such MyDebug::debug(-level => 4, -msg => "AllYourBase"), which is something like what log4perl does, though I've never used it -- crafting my own simpler hooks was easy enough.

Didn't Larry himself say he didn't use the debugger much?

update: just reading random monks home nodes (I should be watching basketball -- go AirForce! Beat UNC!), I came across this interesting commentary on debuggers. It drives home a few of my points, or at least gives me the assurance that I am not alone.

In reply to Re: Re: blessing a hash ref? by flyingmoose
in thread blessing a hash ref? by stonecolddevin

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