I love debugging Python. The stacktraces are great when logged through Sentry so even on production I can normally spot the bug immediately.

On my local machine it’s even better because I can run the code, let it break and then jump straight into the debugger where I can move up and down through the stack. I can sit in the context at any point and play with the data. I can call any Python function I want to see how the code behaves.

> The stacktraces are great when logged through Sentry

<cough>Bugsink</cough> :-)

I don't think it's related to being a dynamic language. There are many "pretty exception printers" that will dump all the local and global variables, if you want.

I don't think Python is special in this regard. I have the same issue with .NET/C# stack traces.

With Python, you can run your program under pdb, which will automatically enter break on exceptions, and you can easily print locals.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/pdb.html

> What’s the easiest possible way to cause stacktraces to also dump local variable information? I feel like this is a feature that should be built into the language…

That is built into Python!

    import sys
    
    def div(x, y):
        return x / y
    
    try:
        print(div(1, 0))
    except ZeroDivisionError as e:
        print("Div by zero!")
        print("Locals:")
        _, _, tb = sys.exc_info()
        print(tb.tb_next.tb_frame.f_locals)

This will output:

    Div by zero!
    Locals:
    {'x': 1, 'y': 0}

https://stackoverflow.com/a/5328139 has a more thorough implementation that will print you entire stack of local variables.

I don't think it's intrinsic to dynamic languages. I've been reading this from a Common Lisp perspective and all I can think of is, "look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power".