Yup this is it. No architect considers using protos unless there is an explicit need for it. And the explicit need is most times using gRPC.
Unless the alternative allows for zero cost startup and debugging by just doing `console.log()`, they won't replace JSON any time soon.
Edit: Just for context, I'm not the author. I found the article interesting and wanted to share.
And since you need to translate it anyway, there's not much benefit in my mind to using something like msgpack which is more compact and self describing, you just need a decoder to convert to json when you display it.
I'm not guessing. I'm using my knowledge of the program and the error together to decide what to print. I never find the process laborious and I almost always get the right set of variables in the first debug run.
The only time I use a debugger is when working on someone else's code.
And that lines up with some of the appeals to authority there that are good, and that are bad (edited to be less toxic)
The logger vs debugger debate is decades old, with no argument suggesting that the latter is a clear winner, on the contrary. An earlier comment explained the log debugging process: carefully thinking about the code and well chosen spots to log the data structure under analysis. The link I posted was to confirms it as a valid methodology. Overall code analysis is the general debugging skill you want to sharpen. If you have it and decide to work with a debugger, it will look like log debugging, which is why many skilled programmers may choose to revert to just logging after a while. Usage of a debugger then tends to be focused on situations when the code itself is escaping you (e.g. bad code, intricate code, foreign code, etc).
If you're working on your own software and feel that you often need a debugger, maybe your analytical skills are atrophying and you should work on thinking more carefully about the code.
So the skill of knowing how to "println" debug is still very useful.