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Seer: A GUI front end to GDB for Linux

(github.com)
376 points turrini | 1 comments | 15 Nov 24 12:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.209s | source
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rkharsan64 ◴[15 Nov 24 13:44 UTC] No.42146864[source]▶
On a general note, I would recommend any new (and experienced!) programmers to master the debugging tools of their ecosystem. I've seen countless experienced developers use printf-based debugging and waste hourse debugging something which could've been easily figured out by setting a breakpoint and stepping through your code. This is also a good way to understand code you're unfamiliar with.

This is one area where I believe a GUI tool is so much better: I can hover over variable names to view their values, expand and collapse parts of a nested structure, edit values easily, and follow execution in the same environment I write my code in.

Sure, it doesn't help much for some scenarios (one I've heard people mention is multithreaded code, where logs are better?), but for most people it's not that far from a superpower.

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1. cmrdporcupine ◴[15 Nov 24 14:19 UTC] No.42147176[source]▶
Even in multithreaded code, it's absolutely amazing to be able to pause a running program and look at the list of running threads and the values in scope and see where deadlocks might be sitting.

It's immediately obvious you're deadlocked, which is actually kind of tricking to suss out with log-style debugging.

Modern debuggers can do so much, being able to lay down conditions to only break when certain values are set, etc. etc. Some can even "rewind" programs. I'd say most people (including myself) are using only 25% of their debugger's capabilities.

Aside: One the reasons I despise working with async Rust code is the mess it makes of working with a debugger.