Question

Since Python is a dynamic, interpreted language you don’t have to compile your code before running it. Hence, it’s very easy to simply write your code, run it, see what problems occur, and fix them. Using hotkeys or macros can make this incredibly quick.

So, because it’s so easy to immediately see the output of your program and any errors that may occur, I haven’t uses a debugger tool yet. What situations may call for using a real debugger vs. the method I currently use?

I’d like to know before I get into a situation and get frustrated because I don’t know how to fix the problem.

Answer 1

I use pdb for basic python debugging. Some of the situations I use it are:

• When you have a loop iterating over 100,000 entries and want to break at a specific point, it becomes really helpful.(conditional breaks)
• Trace the control flow of someone else’s code.
• Its always better to use a debugger than litter the code with prints.
• Normally there can be more than one point of failures resulting in a bug, all are not obvious in the first look. So you look for obvious places, if nothing is wrong there, you move ahead and add some more prints.. debugger can save you time here, you dont need to add the print and run again.