On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 6:49 AM, Dan Sommers <d...@tombstonezero.net> wrote: > On Sun, 08 May 2016 23:01:55 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote: > >> ... I like to recommend a little thing called "IIDPIO debugging" - If >> In Doubt, Print It Out. That means: If you have no idea what a piece >> of code is doing, slap in a print() call somewhere. It'll tell you >> that (a) the code is actually being executed, and (b) whatever info >> you put between the parens (ideally, some key variable or >> parameter). Part A is often the important bit :) ... > > Having spent a long time developing embedded systems, I wholeheartedly > agree. In spirit. Isn't that what the logging module is for? Fine > grained control, as centralized or distributed as is warranted, over > program output? > >> ... The trouble with a verbose flag controlling all print() calls is >> that IIDPIO debugging suddenly doesn't work; plus, it's easy to copy >> and paste code to some other module and not notice that you don't have >> a verbosity check at the top, and then wonder why disabling verbose >> doesn't fully work. Both problems are solved by having a dedicated >> spam function, which will simply error out if you didn't set it up >> properly. > > Hey! That sounds just like the logging module.... ;-)
Absolutely. I say "print" in IIDPIO because it's a word that people understand across languages, across frameworks, etc, etc, but when you start doing more of it, the logging module is definitely superior - if you need just one reason to use it, it would be to *leave those prints in place* so the next person doesn't need to reach for IIDPIO at all. (Also, I teach print() because it's one less module to explain. But experienced programmers should get some familiarity with it.) ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
