# Any experience using ruby-debug in Patrick Lenz book?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/any-experience-using-ruby-debug-in-patrick-lenz-book/122958>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [December 13, 2007, 12:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/any-experience-using-ruby-debug-in-patrick-lenz-book/122958 "2007-12-13T00:39:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@mikec](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mikec)\
**Post date:** [December 13, 2007, 12:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/any-experience-using-ruby-debug-in-patrick-lenz-book/122958/1 "2007-12-13T00:39:35Z")

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I am new to Ruby on Rails and am working through Patrick Lenz book on  
building a rails application, which is very good by the way. I have  
gotten through the book with little problem until I reached chapter 11  
on Debugging, Testing and Benchmarking. I am using the updated version  
of the book from Sitepoint which provides instructions for using  
ruby-debug versus breakpoint. I had some trouble installing ruby-debug  
but found another posting on this forum where someone ran into the same  
problem and provided an answer. So now I have installed  
ruby-debug-base-0.9.3-mswin32 and can start mongrel or webrick with the  
config file updated to require “ruby-debug-base”. However, when I enter  
debugger in the story\_controller file which creates a sort of breakpoint  
as explained in the book and attempt to submit a new story using the  
Shovel application the web browser doesn’t hang at all when I submit a  
new story and I can not invoke the debugger. I updated the  
story\_controller.rb file as specified and provide below:

def new  
@story = Story.new(params[:story])  
@story.user = @current\_user  
if request.post? and @story.save  
debugger  
@story.tag\_with params[:tags] if params[:tags]  
flash[:notice] = ‘Story submission succeeded’  
redirect\_to :action =\> ‘index’  
end  
end

I also added the following to the config/environments/development.rb  
file.

require ‘ruby-debug-base’  
Debugger.start

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.