Gapjump // Words

I rediscovered the joys of using Java’s built in command line debugger, jdb, today.  I’d gotten so used to using the graphical debugger in Eclipse that I’d forgotten all about jdb, but lately Eclipse has been choking on debugging projects with many maven dependencies for me.  I really needed a low-tech, high-reliability solution for debugging and going back to the old “add logging statement, recompile, run” routine was not the answer (yes, it helps in production, but in your own dev environment you deserve better).  jdb actually does the job pretty well.  It could definitely do with some improvements, like more shell-like line editing behavior and the ability specify to specify alternate init scripts at runtime.  But like the can opener on a Swiss Army knife, it will get the job done.