So, printf() is your friend. Log everything your program does, and if something seems to go wrong, scour the logs to figure it out. Disk is cheap, so better to just log everything and sort it out later if something seems to be broken. There's little hope of doing real interactive debugging in this kind of environment, and most developers don't get shell access to the machines they are running on anyway.

1985: Interactive debuggers suck. PRINT() is your friend.

1990: Interactive debuggers have matured. No one uses PRINT() any more. Debugger questions are now even part of technical interviews.

2008: Concurrent processing and cloud computing have made interactive debugging difficult.

2010: printf() is your friend again.

Developing software is getting to be like fashion. Keep those old skinny jeans and workarounds in your closet. Sooner or later, they'll be in style again.

Original thread:  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1814596