> CTB: one surprising commonality amongst many of the interviews thus far is the lack of use (or disdain for) debuggers. Almost everyone trots out print statements!
Interesting. I came of age before debuggers were a 'thing' available to common kids at home (80s BASIC, etc). As I've worked in various environments over the years, debuggers are nice when available, but they're not always available. Code is only running in production, you don't have full access to a debuggable environment, company won't pay for tool X, etc. print/log statements always work, regardless of what tool/language you're working with. Or... 'always work' enough of the time that it's not surprising it's a common theme.
I jump between client projects relatively often (consulting) and while I do use debuggers, I don't use them exclusively (perhaps no one does?). The longer I'm in a codebase, the more likely it will be that I'll end up with a full debugger setup and get comfortable stepping through all the bits.
le-mark
Joe Armstrongs dissertation is also an enlightening read;
I really enjoyed "Coders at Work". Joe Armstrong's interview really stuck out to me; it seemed like he just thought differently than everyone else in the book. In a way, he reminded me of Larry Wall.
vsaase
When I last read the book I found most interviewees had an aggressive or bro-like manner, putting coding skills over everything else. Made me kind of sad from the viewpoint of someone who has duties outside of coding
dkekenflxlf
Fonders at Work is great, CaW was rather boring - just a sequel to make $$
Interesting. I came of age before debuggers were a 'thing' available to common kids at home (80s BASIC, etc). As I've worked in various environments over the years, debuggers are nice when available, but they're not always available. Code is only running in production, you don't have full access to a debuggable environment, company won't pay for tool X, etc. print/log statements always work, regardless of what tool/language you're working with. Or... 'always work' enough of the time that it's not surprising it's a common theme.
I jump between client projects relatively often (consulting) and while I do use debuggers, I don't use them exclusively (perhaps no one does?). The longer I'm in a codebase, the more likely it will be that I'll end up with a full debugger setup and get comfortable stepping through all the bits.