The Ins and Outs of Debugging Ruby with Byebug

Ruby on Rails is, arguably, one of the finest innovations in modern web development. Its astute focus on simplicity and developer productivity, combined with user satisfaction, precipitated a culture of rapid prototyping with a heavy focus on unit testing (even if DHH has since revised his position.) Rails has, no doubt, been a catalyst for many successful startups (Twitter among them). One of the main criticisms levelled at it (particularly from people who are less experienced in using it) is the heavy use of 'magic'. As Ruby developers, we are acutely aware that magic is simply DSLs and metaprogramming, but that can still prove frustrating to debug. Enter: Byebug.

The de-facto debugger for Rails is Byebug. It works with Rails where things like Pry fall short, comes recommended by the core Rails team, and is even bundled with Rails. This article will walk you through getting set up with basic debugging along with some slightly more advanced techniques.

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by David Bush via SitePoint