Applying winpdb_reborn

[Alan Gauld]

On 29/05/2021 19:10, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
> On Sat, 29 May 2021 09:51:04 -0700 (PDT), Rich Shepard
> <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> declaimed the following:

>> What I find interesting is that every web page I find on 'using pdb' does no
>> more than explain the available commands; they don't explain the debugging
>> process. That's like showing someone what the word processor menus do; it
>> doesn't teach the user how to be a writer.

I would point out that my book on learning to program included a chapter
on using debugging, half of which was on pdb and how to use it. But that
book is now over 20 years old and based on Python 1.5.3! but
interestingly nearly all the reviewers specifically praised my
inclusion of a chapter on debugging.

>> I knew the debugging process with Fortran and C, but haven't learned how to
>> effectively use pdb to find bugs that don't issue a traceback or obvious
>> wrong answer such as my module displaying an empty window with no widgets.

Like most debuggers, set breakpoints, watchpoints and variable traces.

> 	The only debugger I used to be familiar with was that of (Open)VMS.

My first job after graduating was writing white-box test scripts for a
PABX control system. It was done by writing VMS Debug scripts and then
running those scripts with  various input files to provide the different
initialization settings. I wrote around 100K lines of debug scripts to
test around 60K lines of C. It was an amazingly powerful debugger.

> 	I don't even want to think of GDB...

I used gdb a few years after VMS DBG and thought it a dreadfully
primitive beast by comparison. The scripting and automation
features in particular were arcane by comparison.

But they are all more similar to pdb than to winpdb.

Maybe the OP could consider IDLE, it would at least be closer
to an IDE debugger than pdb! And in its latest incarnations Idle
is becoming a fairly useful tool once more.

-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
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