So I'm suggesting a new built-in debug() function as an easy and consistent way to write out debugging information.
Python definitely needs a dedicated debug print command. Since "debug" is take in 3.7, perhaps "debug.print" would work?
I've built python devtools with has such a command:
https://github.com/samuelcolvin/python-devtools
(I'm not trying to promote devtools, just demonstrate what is possible.)
The packge needs a little work but it's already extremely useful, I use it all day every day.
A few things with devtools' debug does: * pretty printing of objects (like pprint but IMHO clearer) * coloured output of objects * extra info about objects, eg. length, type etc. * line numbers and function names where debug() was called * names of the varible (or expression) which is being printed
It would be difficult to fully integrate a package like this into the standard lib since it relies on pygments for colouring output, but not impossible.
Is this the kind of thing you were thinking about?
Samuel Colvin