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A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

blog.jupyter.org

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Re: A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

#11

Post by Gehinnn »

serf wrote: post #10
Gehinnn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone here interested in helping me improving the Python experience of this VS Code extension? I would be very happy if you could reach out on Twitter (@hediet_dev) ;)

as someone who saw the demo on the github page, and wanted to use it for Python, this comment throws up some red flags. What needs to be improved for Python use?

As of now, before you can visualize your data structure, you must convert it to a compatible json string (like demonstrated in [1]). This json must match the schema of the visualizer you want to use.

For TypeScript/JavaScript however, my extension injects some helpers that convert some common data structures (like number arrays) automatically to appropriate JSON. It requires a deep understanding of the target programming language to see how such helpers could be injected.

I don't have this unterstanding for Python and would be very happy if someone who really knows Python could help me out.

[1] https://github.com/hediet/vscode-debug-visualizer/blob/maste...

Re: A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

#12

Post by mxcrossb »

I always thought a debugger was more useful for when you got a big buried in a long execution sequence and produced by unknown combinations of variables. Where as usually my notebook cells are only a few lines long, and with a very clear state going in. Can any of you speak to the practical need for a debugger in Jupter?

Re: A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

#13

Post by throwqwerty »

Gehinnn wrote: post #3

I don't see how this debugger is visual, but anyway it's cool to see that jupyter finally has a debugger. This is what I would call a visual debugging experience: https://github.com/hediet/vscode-debug-visualizer/blob/maste... (Disclaimer: I'm the author of that extension)

cool extension but literally every other use of the term visual debugger refers to a graphical interface for something like gdb (where you have to manually type in commands to set break points, step, continue, etc). so I don't think it makes sense to claim that this is not a visual debugger simply because you've decided to redefine the term to suit your needs (publicizing your extension).

Re: A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

#14

Post by throwqwerty »

I'll take this opportunity to get jupyter advice: one thing I don't understand about jupyter vs jupyterlab is why notebooks in jupyter classic have functioning vim bindings (ie in cells) through the codemirror extension but jupyterlab notebooks do not. in jupyterlab you can have vim bindings in the text editing view but not in the notebook view. for the life of me I cannot understand this design decision. how hard can it be to just leave whatever thing that makes it work in jupyter classic alone so that it continues to work in jupyterlab.

Re: A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

#15

Post by tomrod »

throwqwerty wrote: post #14

I'll take this opportunity to get jupyter advice: one thing I don't understand about jupyter vs jupyterlab is why notebooks in jupyter classic have functioning vim bindings (ie in cells) through the codemirror extension but jupyterlab notebooks do not. in jupyterlab you can have vim bindings in the text editing view but not in the notebook view. for the life of me I cannot understand this design decision. how hard ca…

They may welcome your contribution. Hop on gitter and run it by the dev crew directly!

Re: A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

#16

Post by Gehinnn »

throwqwerty wrote: post #13
Gehinnn wrote: post #3

I don't see how this debugger is visual, but anyway it's cool to see that jupyter finally has a debugger. This is what I would call a visual debugging experience: https://github.com/hediet/vscode-debug-visualizer/blob/maste... (Disclaimer: I'm the author of that extension)

cool extension but literally every other use of the term visual debugger refers to a graphical interface for something like gdb (where you have to manually type in commands to set break points, step, continue, etc). so I don't think it makes sense to claim that this is not a visual debugger simply because you've decided to redefine the term to suit your needs (publicizing your extension).

I guess, growing up with Delphi IDE, Visual Studio, Browser Dev Tools and finally Visual Studio Code, all calling their "visual debugger" just a "debugger", I got used to debuggers being "visual" by default.

As Jupyter has very powerful visualizations, I initially thought they somehow integrated their visualizations into the debugger, just to see that it's an ordinary debugger every modern IDE has. I know a debugger and it's UI is a crazy complicated beast, but I would expect any modern programming language to have such a debugger.

Just because there are text-based browser like lynx, modern browsers shouldn't start calling their products "visual browser", but I get your point.

Sorry for publicizing my extension here. It's free and open source, works with Python and might help a lot of people. According to github insights, traffic decreases whenever I don't publicize it somewhere.

Re: A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

#17

Post by arnsholt »

This looks nice and all, but on the other hand it's kind of depressing how people are expending all this effort on Jupyter and surrounding stuff, just to make something that almost, but not quite as good as Smalltalk.

Re: A Visual Debugger for Jupyter

#20

Post by throwqwerty »

arnsholt wrote: post #17

This looks nice and all, but on the other hand it's kind of depressing how people are expending all this effort on Jupyter and surrounding stuff, just to make something that almost, but not quite as good as Smalltalk.

omg jesus christ the hn trolls are out in full force today. what a valuable hard-hitting insightful opinion. really turing award quality stuff here.
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