# Re: debugging proposal

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-debugging-proposal/97438>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 7, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-debugging-proposal/97438 "2006-07-07T02:53:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fangheuschrecke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/58956e/32.png) [@fangheuschrecke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fangheuschrecke)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-debugging-proposal/97438/1 "2006-07-07T02:53:24Z")

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A few points I’d like to make on the “do we or don’t we need a debugger”  
debate. These are my personal opinions and not intended to upset  
anybody:

1. a debugger is very helpful in understanding other people’s code  
(which includes frameworks like Rails). It can be valuable learning  
tool, in my opinion.

2. “I don’t need a debugger” or “I have never really needed a debugger”  
are not valid reasons for not providing one. I don’t use debuggers much,  
but it’s nice to know there is one, if I need it.

3. I would really like to use Ruby for most of my professional software  
development. Unfortunately, IT managers are too often sold on tools,  
which creates the perception that the maturity of the tools is an  
indication of the value of the programming language. Now, while I  
wholeheartedly disagree with that, I cannot singlehandedly change this  
perception. If _I_ was an IT manager in control of a project, that would  
be a different story, but I earn my livelihood by being a software  
consultant.

4. At the moment, my perception is that Ruby is mostly used by very  
clever and very experienced people (not including myself in that). When  
Ruby adoption becomes more widespread, especially in more commercial  
environments (so I can actually write Ruby code for a living), there  
will be inexperienced developers writing Ruby programs. My view is that  
the more experienced a developer is, the less reliance they will have on  
a debugger, but for all the others, a debugger is often a very valuable  
tool.

5. A debugger is _not_ a replacement for unit testing! (Neither are unit  
tests a full replacement for a debugger, but they certainly do alleviate  
the need for one)

6. A fully-featured, performant UI-based debugger will help (me, at  
least) in evangelising Ruby. On two separate occasions, I have spoken to  
colleagues and got feedback along the lines of “Yeah, but I couldn’t  
figure out why my program didn’t work and it didn’t have a proper  
debugger, so I went back to XYZ”.

7. I needed something interesting to do and this seems like a decent way  
for me to understand the internals of Ruby.

Cheers,  
Max

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**Author:** ![fangheuschrecke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/58956e/32.png) [@fangheuschrecke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/fangheuschrecke)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2006, 11:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/re-debugging-proposal/97438/2 "2006-07-07T11:41:29Z")

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Max M. wrote:

> A few points I’d like to make on the “do we or don’t we need a debugger”  
> debate. These are my personal opinions and not intended to upset  
> anybody:
> 
> 1. a debugger is very helpful in understanding other people’s code  
> (which includes frameworks like Rails). It can be valuable learning  
> tool, in my opinion.

If you use Visual Studio, you may like to know that the current version  
of our Steel IDE for VS has a Ruby debugger with breakpoints, watch  
variables, locals, autos, call stack, stop-and-evaulate (in the  
integrated console), step into/step-over etc.

Currently this debugger works at the speed of the Ruby debugger (i.e.  
slow) but we shall be releasing a fast (as in _very_ fast) debugger in a  
subsequent release. We shall be announcing our work on a Rails debugging  
system at a later date.

best wishes  
Huw C.  
[http://www.sapphiresteel.com](http://www.sapphiresteel.com)