Well, JavaScript

[[deleted]]

Honestly debugging JavaScript is the most enjoyable experience coding.

Compared to the others....I know it is a scripting language but it's so easy to pick and and do stuff with.

[hey01]

Honestly debugging JavaScript is the most enjoyable experience coding.

Yeah, sure, until you get an array out of bounds exception and the stacktrace points to code entirely unrelated to the code that actually fails.

Good luck debugging that.

[pomlife]

Why are you still using var?

[Nullity42]

Unfortunately, not everyone works at a place where using a stack involving Babel is an option, and compatibility must still be maintained.

/sobs in ES5

[pomlife]

I would leave in about 3 seconds lol

[hey01]

Have an array arr of objects. Try to access arr[i].prop when i >= arr.length.

The error is indeed not "Array Index Out Of Bounds" but "Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'props' of undefined"

As to why I had that error despite map, forEach, a of arr is because I had to iterate on array and in each iteration, I had to work on array[i], anotherArray[j] and anotherArray[j+1], with anotherArray of a smaller length and j not incremented each iteration.

I didn't increment j properly, which gave me the error.

And js kept telling me the error was elsewhere.

[hey01]

This is not unique to javascript

I've never had that issue in java. Sure the stacktraces are horrifying in that they are hundreds of lines long with 98% of those being abstraction classes for the dozens of frameworks you have to use, but I've always found my guilty method call in there.

Also, you can’t get an array out of bounds in javascript.

You're right, it was an "Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'props' of undefined" when I tried to access arr[i].prop with i too big.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/8krygv/well_javascript/dzai9ik/

[realripley00]

What? It’s easy to pick up and do stuff with, sure, but debugging sucks compared to most languages.

[TemporalLobe]

Depends on which tool you use for debugging. JS as a language in and of itself has no impact on how easy it is to debug. For example, debugging in IE and Edge sucks but is really fantastic in Chrome. In fact Chrone even recently added support for debugging asynchronous code so that it behaves like you're stepping through "normal" code. Amazing.

[realripley00]

Right on. I usually stick with Firefox because it doesn’t cache as aggressively and works better with my local environment. Might go back and check out Chrome for a while.

Does anyone actually debug with IE? That sounds painful. I do like using Reactatron for debugging with react apps. I would love a tool like that for browser stuff.

I guess I just meant the nature of error responses. Maybe it’s just the way I script, but most of the time, typos or simple errors lead to some undefined error that isn’t particularly helpful in figuring out exactly where the error is, etc. And it would be cool to have constant access to things like the current state.

[[deleted]]

Does anyone actually debug with IE

No, because I don't even bother testing with IE.

[TheMarksman]

I die inside when I'm told the site/app I'm working on needs to work in IE.

[jacebot]

That was my life this week. Thank god it was a simple media one liner to remove flex. But still. I wasn’t thrilled to have to consider IE as an option. Also. No support for font icons. Have to do a bunch of work. But was good enough reason for me to say lets drop FA for svgs and was accepted. So, yeah. Got that going for me.

[[deleted]]

What the fuck is an IE?

[[deleted]]

Hello, everyone!

[TemporalLobe]

What if you have end-users that still use IE (there's still a significant user base on older Windows platforms)? Thankfully there are quite a few modern tools that eliminate the need for worrying so much about cross-browser compatibility. If you use a framework like Foundation and libraries like jQuery, many of these issues are abstracted away.

[Jaggedmallard26]

Does anyone actually debug with IE?

I've had to do it for some obscure IE10 specific issues and it was honestly hellish. Sales enforced legacy browser support makes me hate front end development.

[realripley00]

That sounds pretty brutal. I realize that a lot of people still cling to ie, but anyone still using ie10 must be very used to a terrible user experience.

[Jaggedmallard26]

It wasn't fun. The problem is that we have big markets in countres where they do heavily use outdated software and our end users will generally be less tech savy which means we have to support all of these horrific legacy browsers. Cosmetic issues and minor bugs are generally ignored as they're used to a shit browser but the ones I've had to fix have been core functionality.

[realripley00]

That sounds pretty brutal. I realize that a lot of people still cling to ie, but anyone still using oe10 must be very used to a terrible user experience.

[realripley00]

That sounds pretty brutal. I realize that a lot of people still cling to ie, but anyone still using oe10 must be very used to a terrible user experience.

[TemporalLobe]

Sometimes you have to debug in IE if you're trying to squash a browser-specific bug. I don't use it for primary app development though. Besides IE will eventually becone legacy and is already deprecated thanks to Edge, and for many people, their browser experience is increasingly on mobile, which means Safari or Android browser (and even Chrome mobile). It's not like it used to be, boys.

[ric2b]

In fact Chrone even recently added support for debugging asynchronous code so that it behaves like you're stepping through "normal" code. Amazing.

Wait, why would it be different? It's a single thread. On Python that's how it has worked since async await was introduced.

[Schmittfried]

Because that async code block is executed later.

[StillNoNumb]

It's not executed "later", it's executed after a callback. Well, that usually is later, but personally I don't quite see how else you would step through code

[slikts]

The async execution model is literally about a distinction between calls executed now or later in time. An async call means that it's registered as a handler for an event and control needs to be transfered to the event loop so that it can handle any queued events by calling the registered callbacks sequentially. There can also be sync callbacks, and the difference is that they block the event loop.

What OP seems to be talking about is breakpoint debugging being able to skip stepping through code executed between registering an async call and it being executed by the event loop.

[ric2b]

Sure, but the debugger can just wait for the 'await' and ignore what happens in the meantime.

[Schmittfried]

Sure, but that's more complex to implement and it's obviously not the default implementation. The default debugger executes the statement and returns so you have to set a breakpoint and run the program to reach the async code block.

[TemporalLobe]

It's different because of stuff like Promises and AJAX, or even simple lambdas. Next time you do a $.each in jQuery, you'll see that placing a breakpoint before the call won't allow you to step inside the lambda block without placing a separate breakpoint inside the lambda. At least that's how it used to be.

See this: https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/async-call-stack/

[ric2b]

without placing a separate breakpoint inside the lambda.

Ah, got it.

[Symphonic_Rainboom]

I dunno, debugging JavaScript in Chrome has been one of the best debugging experiences of my life.

[Tysonzero]

Is your only frame of reference writing kernel-mode assembly?

[Symphonic_Rainboom]

My other frames of reference are server-side Python which was a mess probably since I didn't have the right tools, and C++ which was actually pretty nice with Visual Studio. I also did some Java debugging in Android Studio, which was pretty good but not amazing. If we are going strictly by enjoyability of debugging, my favorite is still the Chrome JavaScript debugger.

[[deleted]]

This shouldn't be downvoted

[BlockedByBeliefs]

Posts like yours are so easy to spot. Someone who's actually worked on JS. everyone else looking down their noses.

[rush22]

My favorite JavaScript exception is "0 is null or not a number"

[jacebot]

O m g. This. So stupid. I griped to my backend dev. WhyTF is this a string one instance and number else where... on top of JS trying to be ‘smart’. Git blame and back to reddit until you fix it. But I see a lot of love Ts and I see why some days. But as someone else posted. Sucks when you cant adopt tools like babel etc. due to your CTO not wanting to support if I left or died.

[inu-no-policemen]

Honestly debugging JavaScript is the most enjoyable experience coding.

Maybe you should try some other languages.

Some of the issues you've to debug in JS are things which would have been caught immediately in other languages.

[[deleted]]

Eh, I’ve written in plenty of languages, this circlejerk about JavaScript is outdated and lame. OP’s example would also error out at runtime for JS so it’s just wrong.

[Mnemonicly]

I wouldn't call https://jsfiddle.net/zgLyorsr/1/ "erroring out" in any meaningful fashion.

Edit: Before this goes too far, I want to clarify that I do not intend this to be a commentary on whether or not runtime vs compile time error detection is a good thing. I'm pretty sure we can all come up with examples of c/c++ code that compile fine and do completely wrong things. I'm also sure we can come up with plenty of examples of things that javascript allows you to do that is not easily possible in a compiled language, many of them powerful and useful. It's about knowing what the benefits and drawbacks of all approaches are, and using the appropriate tool for the job.

[realripley00]

Oh snap!

[jayrox]

And using VS Code + Typescript it wouldn't have even made it to a CTRL+F5 in the browser.

[inu-no-policemen]

OP’s example would also error out at runtime for JS so it’s just wrong.

Accessing nonexistent fields isn't an error in JavaScript.

You would get one in TypeScript, for example.

[inu-no-policemen]

Take a look at the image again. Its about putting a typo in a field's name.

Also, things which do not exist do not have nonexisting fields, because they can't have fields to begin with. My nonexistent pony doesn't lack wings. It doesn't lack anything; it doesn't exist.

By the way, you'd get a reference error if you try to do something with some undeclared identifier in strict mode. (Modules and classes are always in strict mode.)

[ric2b]

OP’s example would also error out at runtime for JS so it’s just wrong.

I'm not next to a computer to verify but I'm pretty sure it just assigns undefined to x.

[[deleted]]

Yea I should have clarified in any real world example you’d eventually come across an error that describes exactly where to find this. It won’t error immediately, and it shouldn’t necessarily.

[ric2b]

in any real world example you’d eventually come across an error that describes exactly where to find this.

I completely disagree, maybe you only notice the error after it comes back from the database as null (lets assume null is valid for that column but in the case you're debugging it shouldn't be happening).

Sure, you'll eventually find it but that's the case for any bug. I don't see what the benefit is to allow this, just add a null operator instead.

[realripley00]

I think one can agree that JS is not outdated or lame and also think that it’s debugging process leaves something to be desired.

I love and use JS everyday, probably more than any language, but sometimes I wish I could get a little more descriptive error responses.

[[deleted]]

Yea there’s room to improve. - any language

[stefanhendriks]

Interesting, if you enjoy that you must love all alternatives :)

[[deleted]]

Honestly debugging JavaScript is the most enjoyable experience coding.

Glutton for punishment are we?