Re:Ask HN: Do senior engineers have a mental model before co...
by james_s_tayler on Friday August 30, 2019 @05:54PM
(#20843068)
While I don't think they are only ever used as a crutch, I'm starting to see more and more how they definitely are an enabler of spaghetti code.
It's not even just spaghetti but things that are very obtuse too. I often need a debugger whenever I see things in the code like if(variant.sourceId == null) and then below is the large unnamed block of code that also doesn't give any indication of what it implies. Because I have no idea what it implies, I have no idea how the data got into that state, so it's like... What case triggers this code?
I often wind up refactoring that stuff after computing an understanding of it. It usually comes out significanty easier to read and not likely you require a debugger to understand it.
So I that regard I think debuggers enable unnecessarily difficult to understand code to hang around.
It's not even just spaghetti but things that are very obtuse too. I often need a debugger whenever I see things in the code like if(variant.sourceId == null) and then below is the large unnamed block of code that also doesn't give any indication of what it implies. Because I have no idea what it implies, I have no idea how the data got into that state, so it's like... What case triggers this code?
I often wind up refactoring that stuff after computing an understanding of it. It usually comes out significanty easier to read and not likely you require a debugger to understand it.
So I that regard I think debuggers enable unnecessarily difficult to understand code to hang around.