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Debugging? What???

ouraqt · 2008-03-04T14:45:56

Hey folks. I've been programming for about five years now (just as a hobby - no formal schooling). But because I've taught myself everything, I seem to have missed out on one big topic: debugging. I never bothered to learn how to use a debugger. Now, I have VS 2005, so I definitely HAVE a good debugger (or so I'm told), I just have no idea how to use it. But I've been fine for five years without it, so I'm reluctant to learn now. I've done some cool things, like this graphing calculator. Not using a debugger has made me good at predicting what my code will do before I run it, so if I ever do learn how to properly debug (instead of using cout<<... or MessageBox(...)) I think I will be a great programmer (because I focus more on writing code that works the first time). So, is it worth it to learn proper debugging? I always just set my projects to "release mode" and never bother with "debug" mode. I seem to be fine with the way things are now, but will debugging prowess make me a much more efficient programmer? PS: Another one of my bad habits is cramming everything into one .cpp file (I don't always do this, but it happens too often). If the project starts out small (like the graphing calculator I linked to above), then I never bother to encapsulate parts of it and compartmentalize the program.

General and Gameplay Programming Programming Unity

Started by ouraqt March 02, 2008 04:45 PM

13 comments, last by Yann L 16 years, 1 month ago

Kylotan

10,510

March 04, 2008 05:10 AM

I think learning to debug code without the aid of a debugger is a useful and valuable skill. As you say, it forces you to focus a bit more on code correctness rather than a trial-and-error approach. And it is more educational to learn to spot the logical error in your code, than for a debugger to find it for you. But there are many times when something goes subtly wrong and a debugger is far and away the most efficient and effective way of resolving the problem. For those times, you owe it to yourself - and to any future colleagues, if you end up working as a programmer - to learn how to use this valuable tool.

Shiny

456

March 04, 2008 06:24 AM

Working without a debugger makes you more cautious, IMO (well, makes -me- more cautious). If you ever get stuck working on embedded systems, sometimes the stuff you work on can't be remotely debugged (you write the code, stick it on device, hope it works). This is not always the case, but I have had to do it a few times and it ...well, it is unpleasant, shall we say? It's never nice to see that a simple mistake (overwriting something that you meant to keep protected in memory) can cause your entire system to crash irrecoverably :(

I vote for debugger in all circumstances where you can use one! When that fails, formal logical reasoning is your best bet (but only if you really care what happens when you start things up).

~Shiny

[edit] Reasons why people still care about formal methods :P

------------'C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.' -Bjarne Stroustrup

BloodWarrior

164

March 04, 2008 06:38 AM

hm... my two cents:

Reasons for using a debugger:
Faster to find bug,
Multithreading, call stacks, memory windows, dynamic value changes,
Enables to understand easilly what is the bug and why,
Allows you to step through your program easilly seing how its being run
No changes to the release code (ie: you are sticking it full of message boxes)

Reasons for knowing how to debug without a debugger:
Not always possible to debug (on client site for example)
some languages just dont have debuggers or arent easy to get them (&#106avascript, Java for example, though now there are debuggers for it as well).
Not dependent on a debugger or worst a particular debugger.
Requires knowledge of the application's logic and working.

Reasons for Not using a debugger:
Debugger not available.

Conclusion:
Make sure you can debug without a debugger but dont do it unless you have to.

just my thoughts but they since ok.

Yours Truly
K

Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Optional.Unknown

Crisium

100

March 04, 2008 06:47 AM

ok. a lot of people already comment and pretty much all of them agree that yes it's a good thing... and so do I.

A programmer that can't debug isn't really a programmer!

Using breakpoints, watches, stacks, context and so on are all your friends... learn them.

also debugging is great when you want to know what is going on in other peoples code and 99% of the time programmers will be working on other peoples code in a company.

debug debug debug (gods gift to programmers)

http://osghelp.com - great place to get OpenScenGraph help

Yann L

1,806

March 04, 2008 02:45 PM

Quote:Original post by BloodWarrior
Reasons for knowing how to debug without a debugger:
Not always possible to debug (on client site for example)

Remote debugging over the internet. That saved our asses quite a few times in the past... :)

Debugging? What???

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