I just read this post, which says “Just about every developer uses a debugger, at least occasionally.” I don’t know if I’m inadequate or working on a peculiar class of problems, but I haven’t used a debugger in roughly 10 years.
I have used a debugger twice. Once I was chasing down a bug in a boutique embedded systems compiler. The compiler had a bug, and staring at the C code didn’t cut it. I also used the Perl debugger while writing my MS thesis (back when I wrote oodles of Perl code). I used it because a friend showed it to me, and it seemed cool.
My primary debugging technique is code examination. I simply look carefully at my code and think about it. I also write unit tests.
I’m not fundementally opposed to debuggers. It’s just that I haven’t used one in the past 10 years.
