>As to the arguments for not using the debugger, they sound somewhat religious. >I'm not about to claim Larry is wrong for not using it. Genau. I don't think many of us would stand up and say we are on a par with Larry and programming in Perl, perhaps he only needs the print statement to solve any problem he comes across. I suspect given that he wrote it in the first place, perhaps he has a sort of built-in debugger in his brain, anyway.
?-) >I'd not had >the debugger, I'd have had to read a lot more of the module than was >necessary, find it, copy it to ., make it writable, insert >print statements, >etc, then finally remove the module. Quite clearly would have >taken far longer. > Further; if the original gets changed, (via a few 'harmless' print statements), you no longer have the original code, even if it (allegedly) _looks_ the same. People in my experience, often forget or never realize, that one of the major advantages of the debugger is being able to modify the runtime behaviour of the code without modifying the code itself. >If someone has the experience to know what this debugger can >do, and then >decides it's not worth their time, leave them be. It's the >ones who don't >know how to use it who *assume* it's not worth their time who should at >least try it out. > Programmers who assume anything about their program while debugging, are very often misled, just as Generals in historic battles very often get their army slaughtered, via _assuming_ the enemy will do a particular thing, instead of keeping an open mind, and a flexible approach to the prevailing circumstances. Slightly off-topic perhaps, but the principle is the same. Richard Foley --- Ciao - shorter than Aufwiedersehen Visit our website at http://www.ubs.com This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. This message is provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments.