Warp wrote:
>   Can you name one language which would not benefit from a debugger (which
> you can use, among other things, to insert breakpoints, execute the program
> step-by-step and examine the values of all objects at current scope)?

No language per se, but environments. :-)

I just try to avoid languages where the primary debugging tools are outside 
the language. (Altho APL is cool, I can't imagine doing a production program 
in a language that needs something like OBSERVE[1], for example.)

I was pretty impressed at how VS lets you put breakpoints in code-behind 
pages so you can single-step a piece of code as it processes a web request, 
which is really a PITA in most of the other web-oriented languages like PHP.

So yeah, of course debuggers are *useful*. Do I want an external program to 
be the *only* way to track down bugs? Nah.  C is useful too. That doesn't 
mean I want C to be the only language I can use.



[1] Since Google is making it hard to find, the "observe" command sets a 
flag that makes each APL statement print the line it's running, puts a 
carret under the current operator it's evaluating, prints out both 
arguments, and then the result, essentially single-stepping the evaluation 
of a single expression with copious output.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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