Products · Broad category
Debuggers
Raised as a usability problem by 54 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2009–2025), in 40 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Setting up a debugger is painful and often not worth the effortUnreviewed
20092026- Debugger is hard to use, so people prefer adding logging instead2025-09-10
- Hard to get large Java or C++ programs working with debuggers and symbols2025-01-14
- Debuggers have complicated setup, slow startup, and clumsy watch and breakpoint interfaces2024-11-23
Debugger shows arrays and data poorly, displaying too much or too littleUnreviewed
20092026- Debugging tools force many clicks before reaching the needed data2023-12-07
- Debugger UI is unfriendly; arrays and data display poorly, showing too much or too little2021-09-15
- Debugger shows unreadable hex values, can't search variables, hard to manage breakpoints, freezes on large arrays2019-11-27
Setting conditional breakpoints or logpoints is a painUnreviewed
20092026- Setting conditional breakpoints or logpoints for probing is a pain in most debuggers2024-11-23
- Conditional breakpoints in C/C++ debuggers are slow because they trap on every hit2021-03-30
- Conditional breakpoints need obscure syntax that is hard to remember and debug2015-06-26
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Had a terrible time getting a debugger working with TypeScript on Node2025-11-03
- Debugger is hard to use, so people prefer adding logging instead2025-09-10
- Hard to get large Java or C++ programs working with debuggers and symbols2025-01-14
- Can't figure out how to use a debugger with async code2024-12-13
- Stepping through many breakpoints manually is tedious and slow to set up ad hoc2024-11-24
- Setting conditional breakpoints or logpoints for probing is a pain in most debuggers2024-11-23
- Debuggers have complicated setup, slow startup, and clumsy watch and breakpoint interfaces2024-11-23
- Modern abstract code makes it hard to tell which function actually gets called2024-11-14
- Hard to use a debugger effectively with concurrency and network clients2024-11-14
- Stepping through functions in optimized executables gives a poor debugging experience2024-09-08
- Debugger shows only one moment; breaking every iteration is too tedious for gradual bugs2024-01-30
- Debugger can't present complex program state in an easily readable form, only simple variables2024-01-30
- Debugging tools force many clicks before reaching the needed data2023-12-07
- Too many steps and mental state to track; getting lost means starting over2023-08-11
- Debuggers are hard to set up and break with a different language, compiler or OS2023-03-10
- Can't copy whole data structures as JSON; workarounds needed2023-03-10
- Debugger steps, breakpoints and data printing are hard to recall and often fail or crash2023-03-10
- Debuggers are too limited for managing breakpoints and watches, and their UX is poor2022-10-18
- Debuggers need manual setup, entry points and executables before they work, unlike print statements2022-08-18
- Debuggers are inconvenient to reach for and need configuration effort to learn2022-08-18
- Debugger for embedded systems is missing or cumbersome to set up2022-06-14
- Stepping through code loses people; they go past the error before noticing it2022-06-04
- Debuggers are hard to set up, so projects end up relying on print statements2022-06-04
- Single stepping takes seconds and redraws all debugger panes visibly2022-05-22
- Attaching a debugger at big companies is difficult or impossible due to convoluted setups2022-01-14
- Debugger support is an afterthought, and debugging is hard for people to set up2021-09-15
- Debugger UI is unfriendly; arrays and data display poorly, showing too much or too little2021-09-15
- Debugger gets lost in library maze when stepping through code2021-07-12
- Debuggers require relearning commands each time, so developers fall back to print2021-04-27
- Debuggers need a whole debug build and environment setup before they work2021-04-25
- Stepping through code line by line is tedious, with most steps spent on irrelevant lines2021-04-24
- Takes an hour to figure out how to attach the debugger to each project2021-04-24
- Typing print expressions into a tiny input lacks editor conveniences like completion and vi keys2021-04-24
- Debuggers need setup and stepping; print debugging needs manually adding print statements2021-04-24
- Debuggers fail to find symbols or need hard-to-figure setup in many languages2021-04-24
- Debuggers have a steep learning curve, so people avoid learning them2021-04-24
- Conditional breakpoints in C/C++ debuggers are slow because they trap on every hit2021-03-30
- Standalone debuggers like gdb are a big pain to drive from editors or terminals2021-01-29
- Form fails to load and gives a list of vague workarounds2020-12-13
- Can't set a data breakpoint when the value lives only in a register2020-09-16
- Linux debuggers are slow and undependable, and struggle with C++ debug info2020-02-28
- Hard to inspect the right thread; other threads disrupt the debugger display2019-11-27
- Debugger shows unreadable hex values, can't search variables, hard to manage breakpoints, freezes on large arrays2019-11-27
- Console debuggers are buggy, poorly translated, and missing key features, so debugging is painful2019-01-05
- Debuggers don't show data in readable form, so people fall back to printf2018-12-31
- Debugger hits obscure, ungooglable edge cases on startup and refuses to print symbol names2017-12-21
- Stepping through one line takes 1 to 4 presses, varying by debugger and compiler2017-04-06
- Debugger views are clunky for inspecting large amounts of runtime object data2017-01-10
- Must set up and switch between multiple debuggers, with per-project settings overhead2016-06-22
- Setting up a debugger is painful and often not worth the effort2016-02-07