Well yes, but when I use a debugger for example that would require me to first debug application 1, then 2, then 3 in order to fully go through the cycle. This seems quite... time consuming.
You should not need to do this with microservices. Part of creating them is implementing well-defined API's, which create concrete borders between your services. It is extremely easy to capture/log all traffic passing between your services, which you should be able to use to determine which service is misbehaving, and them aim your debugger there. If you cannot do this, then your API's are not doing what they are supposed to be doing.
> It is extremely easy to capture/log all traffic passing between your services
But you would have to create a development environment running the complete micro-services environment on a single machine. Or setup distributed/cloud logging & debug against production. Which is generally easier to do if you use a monolith. Admittedly tools like docker compose and vagrant can help with this.
If you rely on a stepping debugger, you're fscked anyway when you step outside
of desktop applications and websites. Logs and trace dumps (tcpdump/strace
like) are what works almost everywhere.
