Tim: >> Back when I were a lad, we didn't use no debugger. We'd print the code, >> and attack the printout with pencils out to mark all the bugs and >> corrections, then type the changes back in. Manuel Aróstegui: > No kidding? > > That's awesome!!! I hate to sound "not awesome," ;-) but it's not as fantastic as you might think. When you *invent* a program, you're supposed to work out how it should work and what it should do, first. If you know what you're doing, you get it right during this stage. Then you enter your code into the computer, and it just works. (Then came Windows, with masses of its own bugs, and *you* couldn't do a damn thing about them.) Most bugs were down to making mistakes when entering your data, and printing the code was the easiest way to check it all. I can certainly scan more across long sheets of paper than the keyhole view of just part of it you get through a VDU, and some have limited scrolling features, or far too rapid scrolling, so it's quicker and easier to look for bugs on paper (if you know what you're looking for). And you'll usually find several, so that speeds debugging up, too. What's more of a bastard to resolve is when you've made fundamental errors in how to code your program (it does what you tell it to do, but you've told it to do something stupid). Tim, still waiting for one of the old codgers to say, "You young whippersnappers have it easy, when we wanted to program we had to oil the gears and stoke the engine..." -- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
