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Coding can be soo frustrating, are there really not more advanced tools to debug than googling stack overflow threads for hours?

Really I find this quite mad. the most technical people in the world seem to have not come up with more sophisticated methods, is that correct?
Like for example a more advanced search engine that is connected to VS so that it can understand the context of my search.

Or simply a tool to ask others for money. Like here 5 bucks, pls help me fix this briefly.

Grepper is the only tool that I found that really is quite cool.

I think there could so many more tools. Why aren't there more?

  1. 1

    Being a software engineer is literally just googling stuff all day until your brain starts absorbing it all then, eventually you become google!

    1. 1

      hahaha had to laugh about this. You're right, feeling more google like every day...

  2. 1

    It depends on what you're trying to debug. If you're working on desktop or mobile software, then you can use a debugger (e.g., the one that comes with Visual Studio) to stop your app while it's running, step through the code line by line, and look at what's happening to individual variables. There are sophisticated tools in some areas. For example, with computer graphics there are tools like APITrace that'll let you log graphics draw operations, and then play back parts to see which calls are doing what.

    For web-app front-ends, there's the debugger built into all major browsers (e.g., push F12 in Firefox or Chrome).

    I'm not sure what debugging tools are available for Ruby on Rails, Go, nodeJS, etc.

    If all else fails, a very simple and effective technique is to riddle your code with logging output. That way you can trace what code path was taken, and also print out the values of variables you need to monitor. I've done a lot of this when a proper debugger wasn't available.

  3. 1

    Instead of googling Stackoverflow, try to create a post there and see what happens.

  4. 1

    Yep. If I had a $ for every time I search stack overflow I wouldn't need a day job! Also, sounds like you might have found an Indie Hacker opportunity there 😄

    1. 1

      haha exactly! Yeah I'm thinking about building something actually. I just want to be very sure that the problem is indeed a problem for most coders. Like do professionals just read the code of the library for example? Or do they also spend hours googling?
      Or do they just get very used to certain libraries and frameworks and stick to them?

      1. 1

        Writing and understanding software is a skill learned over time. Debugging is critical thinking, drawing on past experience of similar issues, or a variation on a previous issue. Stack overflow is a useful resource. Sometimes it can take a while to work through issues, often if it's relating to popular frameworks or libraries, you can find the answer on stack overflow, you might sometimes just have to wade through . It helps if you can articulate the problem (which needs you to have some understanding) because then you know how to refine the search. When you can accurately articulate the problem though, the solution often becomes evident as you've then put in the time to understand. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

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