Beginning Node.js

CHAPTER 11

Debugging

Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place.

—Brian Kernighan

When undertaking a production application, it is important to have good debugging tools in your tool belt. This can save you plenty of hair pulling and head scratching. In this chapter, we will look at the most basic of debugging assistance tools along with high-powered IDEs and tricks of the trade.

The Console Object

The simplest form of debugging is simple logging. The console is a global object available in Node.js. It is intentionally designed to mimic the behavior of a web browser’s console object. We have been using ...