hesco:

Nice post, with some good followups. My only contribution is this:

1) I frequently find that the debug statements make for some nice internal documentation of the code. Normally, I just comment them out when I'm done with them for the moment. (Though now that I've seen the first AnonyMonk reply, I'll have to start using that technique, instead.)

2) I see two splits that should be made: User/Developer as well as Error/Warning/Informational messages, with differing requirements for each. A User:Error message needs to help the user remediate the problem or discover a workaround, whereas a Developer:Informational message may have numerous random bits of information. I first try to figure out which category I'm writing my message for before writing it. For User:* messages, I try to be complete without specifying details the user doesn't want or need, while for Developer:* messages I tend to be terse and laden with information I want to see.

--roboticus

In reply to Re: The Evolution of the Lowly Debug Statement by roboticus
in thread The Evolution of the Lowly Debug Statement by hesco

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.