debugger?

[David Bolen]

Qiangning Hong <hongqn at gmail.com> writes:

(...)
> However, while I use pdb or inserting "print" statement to debug my
> apps, sometimes it is a pain.  I think I need a good GUI debugger to
> help me.  The debugger should meet _most_ of the following
> requirements:
> 
> 1. can debug wxPython applications (and other GUI lib).
> 2. an intuitive way to set/clear/enable/disable breakpoints.
> 3. can set conditional breakpoints (i.e. break when some condition satisfied).
> 4. variable watch list, namescope watching (local, global)
> 5. evaluate expression, change variable values, etc within debugging.
> 6. change the running routine, (i.e. go directly to a statement, skip
> some statements, etc)
> 7. clever way to express objects, not just a string returned by repr()
> 8. perform profiling
> 9. a clear interface.
> 10. cross-platform.
> 11. free, or better, open source.

Although we typically use unit tests and 'print' debugging, I settled
on Wing IDE as having the best debugger for the times when something
more was needed.  It's not free (pretty reasonable cost for an IDE
though), but otherwise I think would meet your other points, except
perhaps for profiling.  It's easy enough to grab an evaluation version
to try out (http://www.wingide.com).

For us, a big point was wxPython debugging, and being able to stop at
exceptions within wxPython event handlers.  Interestingly enough,
that's seems to be a tough requirement for many of the existing
debuggers because the exceptions occur in code that has been called
out to from within a C++ layer, and thus have to be caught before the
C++ layer gets a chance to clear the exception.

-- David