Re: Re: Re: Are debugging skills atrophying?

[merlyn]

Well, for one, I deliberately don't waste time teaching the Perl debugger in the llama course (or in the llama book). Frankly, if you need to invoke a debugger on a 10-line program, you should not be a programmer.

So, I see two kinds in the llama class. People who work like me, and people who don't. Most of the people who work like me (little snippets, until it works) get the job done quickly. Most of the people who don't seem to get into cut-n-paste frenzy, and then unable to continue with the later exercises where we talk more about concepts and show fewer working programs.

I'm rethinking the strategy for the PROM course (packages references objects modules), simply because the "x" output from the Perl debugger is durn useful at just seeing what you autovivified. I have a "long" version of the course where I teach the debugger toward the end, but I've ended up demo-ing it in the middle instead far too often.

Personally, my use of the debugger is limited to "perl -debug", to try out one line snippets interactively. I remember that neither Larry nor I had enough experience with the Perl debugger (even though he wrote it!) for the first Camel, and that's why there's very little on the debugger in there. Neither of us use it!

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker