From: Kev Jackson <kevin.jackson@...>
Date: 2006-04-17T19:28:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Newbie's Ruby IDE Editor Roundup, April 2006


>debugger is very important to me. Isn't a debugger important in the 
>Agile approach?
>  
>
No a debugger isn't important for an agile approach.  Unit tests which 
can be automated are of much more value than a breakpointed debugger 
IMO.  Using graphical debugging (breakpoints, step-through/over etc) 
isslow and not worth the time it takes to learn them.  Unit tests on the 
other hand are fast, can be automated to run when you aren't at the 
computer and can be used as part of an continuous build process.  
Debuggers are not part of the Agile approach, unit tests are.  See XP [1]

I'm not saying that debuggers have no value at all, but just that in all 
my time coding (ok only 9 years with six being professional), I've 
*never*/not once used one.  In java you read the stack as it's unwound, 
and trace back to see what you did wrong, in ruby I do something similar 
(should I get a failing app).  Before you get that far, you make sure 
you have unit tests, and they catch most errors for you.  Debuggers seem 
to be fully ingrained in the MS VisualStudio world, many of the java 
developers here who came over from VB still use the debugger in Eclipse, 
but it's much much slower than reading the stack trace, and without the 
test, how can you prove that that the bug has been squashed?

Kev

[1]http://www.xprogramming.com/