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I like debuggers for things like examining variables from higher stack frames after a highly conditional break (where printf from every higher stack frame would be lost in noise), for stepping through abstractions (especially in C++, where there may be surprisingly amounts of hidden code executed in overloaded bits and pieces), and for hardware breakpoints (an approach for solving reproducible memory corruption: combine a deterministic memory allocator with memory breakpoints + counters).



This is a great comment. Most of the value I get out of using a debugger - I work in game dev - is from these, often in concert. Even before I start setting data breakpoints, though, I often find myself examining heap memory with the process paused to give myself sufficient context to do more informed exploration later. In the last year or so I've also started using Visual Studio's "action" breakpoints, a sort of runtime configurable printf, once I've identified areas of interest.




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