The Pragmatic Craftsman         :: Simplicity from complexity :: | About Me |

Do you use a debugger? It seems like people that were exposed to programming without a debugger are against it. Their take: if you read the code, you will be able to understand it better and find any mistakes in it fast. I agree to a point, but debuggers are tools that help you become more productive. There is no question about it.

I totally agree with Otaku Cedric (read his very good post) with the following statement:

No matter how productive you are with your current tools, I guarantee you will be more productive with an IDE and with a debugger.

I use Eclipse and I love it. If you don't use an IDE, you should try it. It makes life so much easier.

Talking about debuggers, how about a JavaScript debugger? Well, for the longest time, I couldn't find one. Firefox to the rescue! Let me just tell you that Firefox should be your best friend if you are a web developer: it just kills IE in that regard. There are several extensions to Firefox that are very good if you're involved with JavaScript: the Console (it actually comes with Firefox), and the Debugger, (and a Web Developer extension). Try them all. However, you are really going to appreciate the Debugger: you can step into code just like you can in your Java debugger. That's great. :-) Since I've been using it, it has saved me a lot of time (and frustration).