Jim Mooney wrote: > Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 11:28 AM > To: tutor@python.org > Subject: [Tutor] To error statement or not to error statement > > >> "I find it amusing when novice programmers believe their main job is > >> preventing programs from crashing. ... More experienced programmers realize > >> that correct code is great, code that crashes could use improvement, but > >> incorrect code that doesn't crash is a horrible nightmare." > > Then am I right to assume that rather than put in error statements I > barely understand at this point, the best thing would be to work the > hell out of the program in hope of seeing an error? Does Python have > something that would do this automatically since I can't see running a > program a hundred times by hand? > > Mainly, I'm just learning all this stuff for future reference. I > really doubt I'll need to use nose to find errors in twenty-line > programs. Print, assert, and staring at it for a long time should be > enough for now - and the Wing debugger now and then. > > From the varied replies so far, it sounds to me that debugging is more > of an art than a science. So far the books I've looked at just mention > the basics but don't get into the philosophy of when and how. > > Jim >
If you mostly just write small programs and use them from shell/debugger, then I would just never catch any error. All raised exceptions will automatically be printed by the interpreter when they kill your code. That will automatically show the error and the appropriate stack trace to fix the error. If you combine that with proper logging (print can be fine for single threads) you should have everything you need to solve the problem. Eventually you get better at logging and anticipating possible problems. ~Ramit This email is confidential and subject to important disclaimers and conditions including on offers for the purchase or sale of securities, accuracy and completeness of information, viruses, confidentiality, legal privilege, and legal entity disclaimers, available at http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/disclosures/email. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
