What is something you should have learned or understood earlier?
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What is something that you recently learned that you wish you would have learned or understood earlier?

Date: January 10, 2020

Mine is the python debugger. I was a long holdout thinking that print statements were sufficient. That was untill I started having errors crop up in functions that took minutes to run. The thing that I most notably wish I would have known about is post_mortem.

## Example

 [ins] In [4]: def repeater(msg, repeats=1):
 ...: "repeats messages {repeats} number of times"
 ...: print(f'{msg}\n' * repeats)

 [ins] In [5]: repeater('hi', 3)
 hi
 hi
 hi

 [ins] In [6]: repeater('hi', 'a')
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 TypeError Traceback (most recent call last)
 in
 ----> 1 repeater('hi', 'a')

 in repeater(msg, repeats)
 1 def repeater(msg, repeats=1):
 2 "repeats messages {repeats} number of times"
 ----> 3 print(f'{msg}\n' * repeats)
 4

# Debug with iPython/Jupyter

 %debug

## Vanilla Debug

 import pdb
 import sys

 pdb.post_mortem(sys.last_traceback)

## More

For more information about the debugger checkout the real python article. [https://realpython.com/python-debugging-pdb/](https://realpython.com/python-debugging-pdb/ "https://realpython.com/python-debugging-pdb/")

Also keep a bookmark of the table of pdb commands from the article [https://realpython.com/python-debugging-pdb/#essential-pdb-commands](https://realpython.com/python-debugging-pdb/#essential-pdb-commands "https://realpython.com/python-debugging-pdb/#essential-pdb-commands")

# Debug Session

[![debug session](https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--ShQ3NN06--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/1tnri6wdwimwk7i83cvg.png)](https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--ShQ3NN06--/c_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cfl_progressive%2Cq_auto%2Cw_880/https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/1tnri6wdwimwk7i83cvg.png)