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Yes, back in the day we either had no debugger or one which was unusable (I'm looking at you, OpenVMS).
A developer must know how to debug without a debugger and must know when to use one and when not to.
90% of bugs don't require a debugger, just common sense.
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I've been coding since '86 so I cut my teeth on programming without a debugger. However, my code was much simpler because my machines were at best 2MHz 16 bit lil monsters with 256KB of RAM at best a 1.44MB floppy. Now my little widgets often have megabytes of program storage, gobs more RAM and run at hundreds of MHz or even GHz speeds. That and I didn't have C and C++ available. I was using Pascal, BASIC and assembly.
It's a different world. My code is so much more complicated now. I have threading to contend with, including multiple cores in many cases, several different ways of doing wireless comms, and an entire Internet to talk to. Things are just different now.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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One of my university professors was talkin about 'debugging by cranial massage' 
That was in 1977. The standard debugging method was adding console output statements in the appropriate places - which takes a lot of practice. It gave me a valuable 6th sense in where to place breakpoints in more recent debuggers: Several times, people looking over my shoulder asked 'Why do you put the breakpoint there?' I answered honestly: 'Dunno. It may be a good place for looking around' - and it was.
I didn't see a decent debugger until around 1980. Some of the features of that one, I still miss: You could single step by function call rather than by line. And you could set the range for single stepping (by call or line), e.g. to a single function or module - or set in a large unit and reset in subrange within that module, leaving step breakpoints only in the interesting parts. There may be other debuggers with these features, but none of those I have been using over the years.
Of course it was missing a lot that we take for granted today, and it obviously was CLI and not GUI oriented, so I wouldn't want it back in its original form. I still wish we could pick some features from that old software and add them to today's debuggers!
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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trønderen wrote: The standard debugging method was adding console output statements in the appropriate places
This is my life now. And it has similarly honed my abilities.
trønderen wrote: I still wish we could pick some features from that old software and add them to today's debuggers!
Absolutely.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Now we have "Time Travel" debuggers which I have attempted on several occasions and always failed.
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BernardIE5317 wrote: "Time Travel" debuggers
TARDIS and sonic screwdriver not included. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Maybe that is why I failed.
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I installed VB6 and got some old stuff running![^]
That's about three days in lost productivity, so I hope it will be worth it 
Registering the COM Callable Wrapper was a pain and took most of the time.
I needed to run regasm.
The trick was in setting the /codebase parameter, which shows an error, but still does something that made it work 
Also running it with the -tlb switch somehow works miracles.
For anyone who may have to do this sometime:
regasm -tlb C:\Windows\SysWOW64\MyCCW.dll
regasm C:\Windows\SysWOW64\MyDLL.dll /codebase /tlb:C:\Windows\SysWOW64\MyCCW.tlb The VB6 codebase has a total size of 1.63GB, plus VB6, which is another 3.77 GB, makes it 5.4 GB.
The VM I needed to run it was a staggering 203 GB, which takes quite a chunck out of my 1 TB drive
It now sits safe in some external storage (I don't dare delete it yet) 
That alone should be worth it 
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A Tip/Trick in the works?
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Congrats, Sander.
Now if only you could figure out how to get the original Minesweeper installed on Windows 10/11!
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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VM with a Windows 98 
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Sander Rossel wrote: regasm
Wow, the memory of old tools that I have long since forgotten...
It's amazing how we can be intimately familiar with certain tech & then never think about it again, unless someone mentions it.
There are some things I'm glad to forget too.
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Wordle 1,062 3/6
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
so close...
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Wordle 1,062 3/6
🟩🟨🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,062 4/6*
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟨⬜🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Wordle 1,062 5/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Wordle 1,062 4/6*
🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. -Anon
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. -Frederick Nietzsche
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Wordle 1,062 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,062 4/6
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨🟨🟨⬛
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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Wordle 1,062 5/6*
🟨🟩⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,062 3/6
⬛⬛🟩⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Jeremy Falcon
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Did you know that MS Edge has a built-in VPN?
It automatically applies VPN when you are connected to a public wifi.
Here are some more details[^] which I'm reading now.
I work out of a coffee shop once a week so this is important to me.
I'm trying to figure out :
1. how to know I'm actually protected
2. how "much" i'm protected by this VPN.
It is very interesting that MS is doing this though becuase it seems like the obvious thing to do that no other browser seems to do. Others you have to pay for separate VPN.
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Quote: ... stop third parties and bad actors from accessing your sensitive information, so you can make purchases online, fill out forms, and keep your browsing activity away from prying eyes.
Yeah, because it's still 2010, and every site on the net is still using HTTP rather than HTTPS, right?! 
Whilst there are still reasons for using a VPN[^], the MS page you linked to seems like it was written by a gibbering idiot marketing executive who doesn't understand the first thing they're talking about. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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I've wondered about that. So if I'm on an HTTPS site, then the moment I hit SUBMIT the data is encrypted locally (using the public key of the target site) and then transfered so even a person on same wifi can't see it right?
The one thing I'm looking to be protected from which I know is a current issue is token grabbing.
Here's what I mean. You are already signed into your Google account on your laptop. When you go to a site like stackoverflow or CP that you use your google credentials and you're on the public wifi then the nefarious actor can grab your token and use it to sign into your account.
I'm hoping / guessing that the VPN would protect me from that. But I'm wondering how I could prove that it does that?? 
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