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The Zed Debugger Is Here

(zed.dev)
502 points SupremumLimit | 3 comments | 19 Jun 25 02:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.733s | source
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laserbeam ◴[19 Jun 25 08:07 UTC] No.44316502[source]▶
I'm very happy to see work on the debugger. This is the main feature preventing me from switching full time to zed.

Unfortunately, "here" is not accurate. Not having a watch window, a stack trace view, and no mention of data breakpoints in the announcement still keeps the "beta" tag. I know those features will arrive eventually, but what is described is definitely not sufficient for 97% of my debugging sessions.

I would also have liked to see more in the announcement of multiple simultaneous debug sessions, and on how multithreaded debugging is planned. There are really cool things that can be done with multithreaded debugging further down the line that I'd be interesting in hearing about (like how RemedyBG has a DAW-like UI for freezing certain threads, or hitting one button to "solo" a thread and freeze all others).

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1. anthony-eid ◴[19 Jun 25 17:18 UTC] No.44320654[source]▶
Hey Laserbeam, I'm one of the devs that made the debugger and the one that wrote the article.

We do have a basic stack trace view that basically all debuggers support. What's coming out in the near future is a stack trace view in our multi buffer system. In fact, you can use the "show stack trace" action while in an active debug session to expand the call stack in a multi buffer, where each excerpt is a frame. It's just not up to the quality that I and several others expect from Zed, so I didn't advertise it.

There's also a PR for a watching variables/expression that is going to be merged in a couple of days. The functionality is done, but we didn't want to add a feature so close to launch that wasn't fully tested.

Support for data breakpoints will come in the near future. I can't say when because we're planning on focusing on automatic configuration for a while, but it is a priority.

We do support simultaneously debugging multiple sessions at the same time and multithreaded debugging too. There's still more to do with it, but the support is definitely there!

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2. laserbeam ◴[20 Jun 25 08:21 UTC] No.44325675[source]▶
I am VERY confident you guys have everything I mentioned either half working or coming shortly, so I'm not worried. I just saw a "the debugger is here!" announcement, then read the announcement, and saw what's still under todo... My reaction is "well, it's not here, it'll be here in a few weeks". And that's ok ^.^

Am impressed by the under-the-hood discussion though. Keep up the great work!

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3. anthony-eid ◴[20 Jun 25 08:38 UTC] No.44325734[source]▶
Thank you for the positive energy and I'm glad you liked the under the hood section!