I tend to use ipython kernel for debugging in python, it is not a debugger but does the job for me to find what is wrong while working on a scientific project. What are your thoughts on it?
Coming to debugger in python (pdb), in your blog you criticize using debugger to step line by line. But this need not be the case, one can jump to debugger prompt and set a break point from the prompt itself where one feels something is wrong and continue to that break point and repeat this process. So one need not to jump through each line. In such a case it works equivalently to carefully put print statements, i.e judiciously put print statements = judiciously put breakpoints, what do you think?
A professional uses them to trap events and then explore the programs state. And to inject faults and watch how the program explodes, or not. In that debuggers are vastly better than printf debugging.
EDIT: one of the comments by the author makes it very clear: they don't consider lots of things you can do with e.g. gdb as "using a debugger": https://lemire.me/blog/2016/06/21/i-do-not-use-a-debugger/#c... </EDIT>
The submitted article here is similar, by opening with that ridiculous example and pretending that's what using a debugger means. Debuggers don't make you bad at finding problems. Not knowing when to use which tool makes you bad at it. (And knowing how to make new tools out of your existing ones is also quite helpful)