Dollar Sign Variables

[J. Landman Gay]

On 2/13/14, 5:51 AM, Björnke von Gierke wrote:
>>> I was wondering the same thing. How in the world does one program
>>> without the debugger?
>>>
>>> Jaw dropped.
> I graciously insert put commands when something isn't working as
> expected, then fix the problem and remove the puts again.

That's what we had to do in HyperCard 1.0. I was very happy when HC 
introduced its first debugger so that I didn't need to alter the script 
itself just to see what is going on. Debugging on mobile without a 
built-in debugger reminds me of those old times and I don't like it.

One thing I do all the time is to step through a new handler to see what 
it is doing. When I can see the values of the variables, I know what to 
expect. Usually I can tell when the next executable line will error and 
to avoid having to dismiss an error dialog and start over, I just change 
the value in the variable watcher to something that will work so that I 
can continue to step through and see what other problems might exist. 
When I'm done with that, I fix the handler so that the variable will be 
correct to begin with. That's really handy.

Sometimes handlers don't error but they also don't produce the results I 
expect. I just set a breakpoint and look at the values. The reason for 
the failure is usually quickly apparent.

I think I spend more time in the debugger than anywhere else. It speeds 
up development and there is also no risk of leaving stray "put"s in the 
scripts.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com