Re: Debugger Rant

[aek@vib.usr.pu.ru (Alexander Kopilovitch)]

Marc A. Criley wrote:

>A debugger, like a whiteboard, is a powerful software development
>tool, and I would fiercely oppose giving up either of them, or having
>someone level at me the notion that they were simply a crutch.

Well, you occasionally may need your revolver at your office workplace,
I understand -:) . All right, keep your revolver at hand, if you are sure
that you can control it and that it may be of good use.

>After several years of reading the occasional response to an Ada
>newbie that they'll virtually never need a debugger when programming
>in Ada (as well as that if the code compiles, it'll probably work)--I
>just got fed up with it.

But it is normal to work in offices without revolvers, especially for newbies,
isn't it? Just imagine that all people in your office are carrying loaded
revolvers -:) -- it will be more like a squadron of 19-century cowboys than
a programmer team.

Yes, certainly there are cases where debugger is badly needed. But these cases
aren't for newbies anyway. Also, there are cases where you can locate some
stupid local error much quicker with debugger than without it -- I mean the
situations where you know that there is an error in those several lines, and
you look straight at the error -- and don't see it. But with Ada those situations
are much less likely to occur than with other (existing) languages.

(And yes, every time when I work with debugger I feel myself as I have a revolver
in my hand -:)



Alexander Kopilovitch                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia