Meh. None of these sway me. I'm a die hard printf() debugger and always will be. But I do use debuggers regularly, for circumstances where printf() isn't quite up to the task. And there really are only two such categories (neither of which appear in the linked article!):

1. Code where the granularity of state change is smaller than a function call. Sometimes you actually have to step through things one instruction at a time, and I'm lucky enough to have such problems to solve. You can't debug your assembly with printf(), basically[1a].

2. State changes that can't be easily isolated. Sometimes you want to log when something change but can't for the life of you figure out when it's changing. Debuggers have watchpoints.

But... that's really it. If I'm not hitting one of those I'm not reaching for the debugger. Logging is just faster, because you type it in right at the code you're already reading.

[1a] Though there's a caveat: sometimes you need to write assembly and don't even have anything like a printk. Bootstrap code for a new device is a blast. You just try stuff like writing one byte to a UART address or setting one GPIO pin as the first instructions and hope it works, then use that one bit of output to pull the rest up.

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branko_d 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Assuming you meant C's printf, why would you subject yourself to the pain of recompilation every time you need to look at a different part of code? Isn't the debugger easier than adding printf and then recompiling?

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smlavine 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you use snippets or something to help speed this up? Manually typing `printf("longvarname=%s secondvarname=%d\n", longvarname, secondvarname);` adds up over a debugging session, compared to a graphical debugger setup with well-chosen breakpoints, watches etc.

	▲	ajross 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It really doesn't? I mean, sure, typing is slower than clicking (though only marginally as complexity grows, there's a lot of clicking needed to extract the needed state, and with printf I only need to extract it once and it keeps popping out as I rerun the test). But I spend far more time reading and thinking than I do typing. Input mechanics just aren't the limiting factor here.
	▲	truetraveller 5 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		The first thing I always do is define log. It's bonkers to use console.log() for js. a simple window.log=console.log. Secondly, in your example, no need to label the names. This is almost always understood by context. So, pretty manageable. e.g. in JS: log(`${longvarname}, ${secondvarname}`)
	▲	MangoToupe 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		LLMs have mostly made this trivial, plus you have the added benefit of being able to iteratively dump out more each run.

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truetraveller 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is a solid answer.