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echo: apple
to: comp.sys.apple2
from: mdj
date: 2008-02-14 16:58:52
subject: Re: prototype board options

On Feb 14, 12:36 pm, "Michael J. Mahon"  wrote:

> Actually, was never much for breakpoint debugging, myself--though it has
> its uses.
>
> I've always been a "behavioral" debugger, meaning that I observe a
> programs deviations from expected behavior and then locate the bug
> by deduction.  In cases of (my) confusion, I insert print statements
> instead of breakpoints.

My preferred 'workflow' is almost identical. I find it surprising that
symbolic debuggers are as widely used as they seem to be, since in 99%
of cases, studying and comprehending the expected behavior of a piece
of code is all that's required to see the bug. I also tend to use
print statements to verify the expected state of variables, and in
languages that support it, the assert() statement is a very handy
tool.

An exception is heavily multithreaded applications, where the
debuggers ability to start and stop named threads can be very handy in
isolating some classes timing dependant bugs.

Matt
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