Note : When I find bugs, I put them outside, in the garden, instead of killing them; bugs are people too.
It can be painful to watch me troubleshoot without a debugger. Colleges have encouraged me to "get a real IDE."
So, why do I not use a debugger? Thoughts, off the top of my head:
Debuggers
- have their place in my workflow
- can be time consuming to set up
- are IDE specific; my step one in a code base is not "install this IDE," and my ability to troubleshoot on other's computers is important
Console Logging
- troubleshooting with console log is a hard to learn skill
- is important when we need it most and lack access to a debugger (e.g. emergencies)
- works easily with async and concurrent code (does not change time)
- encourages a scientific, hypothesis-test approach to understanding the code base (this is my most important reason)
Those are my ideas. A few other programmers think similarly. E.g. Uncle Bob (Robert C. Martin) once wrote this :
IMHO a debugger is a tool of last resort.
That's pretty much how I see it. Breathless, exasperated, the humble developer looked at his pairing partner, "Okay. Let's bring out the debugger."