[Coco] Who needs Debuggers was: Re: Strange behavior in MESS

[William Astle]

On 2011-07-07 11:43, John Donaldson wrote:
> Debuggers are good for working on existing code that you are working on. IMHO, 
> they are no good for code your developing. Here at work we are working on code 
> that none of us have seen and has not been worked on in years. So running the 
> debugger alows us to see what the code is doing. If your developing code then 
> you already know what it does because you already have it fixed in your mind.

Actually, that last bit can be a source of problems when debugging. If
you have it fixed in your mind, you might not actually see the thing
that is misbehaving because you "know" how it works. (Been there, done
that.) Sometimes, seeing it run in the debugger under a single step or
similar is enough to reset the neural pathways so you can actually see
the error.

Otherwise, in general, running for the debugger first rather than
thinking about and studying the code is usually much less efficient.
Personally, I use such things as a last resort when I'm stuck.

> 
> John Donaldson
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Steve Bjork <6809er at srbsoftware.com>
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Thu, July 7, 2011 8:58:53 AM
> Subject: [Coco] Who needs Debuggers was: Re: Strange behavior in MESS
> 
> You need a debugger, you say?
> 
> In all the games and programs that I created for the Coco, not once did I ever 
> used a debugger.  Or maybe I should say, no outside debugging program.
> 
> My games had their own OS complete with drivers, signaling and game status 
> systems.  The status system was very handy for "debugging" a problem in the 
> game.  But in most cases of the code "just stop working", I would return to the 
> source code I just worked on and look for the problem there.
> 
> I my opinion, debuggers are overrated and you should learn to code without a 
> crutch.
> 
> Steve (Mega-Bug) Bjork
> P.S. the above pun was intended
> 
> On 7/7/2011 3:44 AM, T. Franklin wrote:
>> I would love to use VCC but to my knowledge, it doesn't have a debugger.
>>
> 
> 
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