[plt-scheme] debugging [mini rant]

From: Eli Barzilay (eli at barzilay.org)
Date: Wed Jul 29 12:14:09 EDT 2009

Sorry to contribute another post on this, but just to clarify:

On Jul 29, Robby Findler wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 7:50 AM, Mike Eggleston<mikeegg1 at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> > Not bogus for me. I perform this type of debugging often on
> > production systems. I like to know I have made no changes to a
> > system I'm trying to find the error in, that I've not introduced
> > another issue by changing the code to add printf()s (stdout or
> > file).

What I described had nothing to do with Scheme, it was a C++ project
on Windows.  But in general my point was that Robby's comment:

> No to belabor the obvious here, but debuggers change the behavior of
> your program (perhaps even more than printfs, depending on what
> you're doing).

is wrong in using "perhaps".  Debuggers (including the one that I used
and the one in PLT) always change code in a way that is much more
intense than adding some printfs.  So an argument in favor of a
debugger of adding some printouts because you want to avoid the
printouts from modifying your program is bogus as printouts are less
likely to do so.

-- 
          ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x)))          Eli Barzilay:
                    http://barzilay.org/                   Maze is Life!


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