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376 points turrini | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.236s | source
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rkharsan64 ◴[] 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. HumblyTossed ◴[] No.42148121[source]
I use debug logs extensively. I log a LOT. I can put the logs and code next to each other and trace through the code. So much better than a debugger. With the logs, I don't have to worry about timers or concurrency or any of that. I can take my time and read the code and reason about what's going on.

Edit: Logging helps me look at what is going on in prod as well. I can trace messages/transactions completely through the path and if there's an issue, I'll see it.