Icecream – A little debugging library

I used to do print debugging a lot. And then I tried using the `breakpoint()` call available since Python 3.7[1], and now I can't imagine doing any serious debugging without PDB (or any other debugger).

(I mentioned Python, since this is linking to the Python-flavor of Icecream).

Sure, there are still times when just calling print() is sufficient. But they are becoming less frequent. `print()` is only shorter than `breakpoint()` by just 5 - len(variable_name_to_print) characters after all.

I know `import pdb; pdb.set_trace()` was available before, though `breakpoint()` is just a lot simpler, among others for the reasons they mentioned in the PEP.

There is also the `--pdb` flag in pytest[2], that lets me jump into a PDB session upon test failure.

All of this makes me think, what are the cases where print-level debugging is the better option in Python, compared to using an actual debugger?

[1] https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0553/

[2] https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/usage.html#using-the-built...

    (defmacro ic (expr)
      `(prog2
         (format t "~&ic| ~A: " ',expr)
         (prin1 ,expr)
         (terpri)))

This is a lisp macro that (1) ensures the debug statement is printed on a newline, (2) prints the expression that got evaluated in its originally read form, (3) prints the value readably, (4) prints a newline, (5) return EXPR. Conforms to ANSI Common Lisp. Works on all implementations. No cute logo or testing required.

If you want to inspect execution, interrupt it, resume it, look at the call stack, look at local variables, then you can use Lisp’s function called break. No external tool required. No installing a dependency or debugger. Works on all implementations.

    (break "stop right there!")

Why do I feel like this is totally not necessary? If I am doing print() debugging, it is because I am lazy. If I want real debugging, there are better tools.

Also, print() works just fine.

very related blog post: f-string debugging in Python 3.8 [0]

which says that Python 3.8 will allow this kind of output:

    >> print(f"{name = }")
    name = 'karthikeyan'
    >>> print(f"{name.upper() = }")
    name.upper() = 'KARTHIKEYAN'

0: https://tirkarthi.github.io/programming/2019/05/08/f-string-...

Two recent discussions about related-though-not-identical Python debugging tools:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19717786

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19772902

It makes sense. Debugging is often a rocky road and you have to be superman sometimes.

I was just thinking about how i wished something like this existed. The only problem is that I always using icecream as a throw away variable name :-)

dae think we've gone a little off the deep end with naming?

one of the 2 hardest things in programming. i agree it should be fun, but should't library naming directly tie into readable code. sure, it'd be boring to call it 'simple debug library', i dunno

Please add "python" to the title