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Seer: A GUI front end to GDB for Linux

(github.com)
376 points turrini | 2 comments | 15 Nov 24 12:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.422s | 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. shortrounddev2 ◴[15 Nov 24 15:31 UTC] No.42147789[source]▶
I honestly believe it's a cultural thing. I don't think there's any rational reason to not want to use a debugger, but I've met many people who swear it's useless. I think people in web tend not to use debugger, and a lot of Linux people as well. Everybgame developer I've met and most windows programmers use them
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2. marssaxman ◴[15 Nov 24 16:43 UTC] No.42148520[source]▶
I made heavy use of interactive debuggers earlier in my career. After several years working in environments where debuggers were broken, unhelpful, or not available, I completely lost the habit. It was not so much a cultural thing as simple practicality: logging always works. I'd rather maximize my limited brainpower by focusing on the software I'm building and thinking as little as possible about the tools I'm using.

It may be somewhat cultural in that influence from functional programming eventually changed the way I think about state and state transitions, leading me to design my code differently, reducing the amount of debugging I have to do and making it easier to do via logging.