# The JuliaDebug repo: how to be helpful to newbies (and old hands as well)?

**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618
**Category:** General Usage
**Created:** [October 1, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618 "2020-10-01T21:41:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/1 "2020-10-01T21:41:54Z")

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When one visits [JuliaDebug](https://github.com/JuliaDebug), the page shows about a dozen repos but no guidance as to what does what, what is live, and how to make sense of it all.

I don’t have a good answer yet, but how about you all?

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### Author: ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 11:02am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/2 "2020-10-02T11:02:47Z")

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Generally organization pages aren’t the best place for this kind of information — and they don’t, anyway, see

[https://github.community/t/readme-for-organization-front-page/2920/](https://github.community/t/readme-for-organization-front-page/2920/)

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### Author: ![ffevotte](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ffevotte/32/6587_2.png) [@ffevotte](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ffevotte)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 11:39am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/3 "2020-10-02T11:39:27Z")

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The [JuliaImages](https://github.com/JuliaImages/) links to a common [web page](https://juliaimages.org/stable/) which provides orientation among all packages in the org (the page itself is hosted by github pages and defined as a repo inside the org).

I’m not sure whether such a page is hard to maintain in the long run.

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### Author: ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 1:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/4 "2020-10-02T13:10:56Z")

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There is this info for the Gallium package:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/0/c/0c91223e1717da20ffc66ea11f9aa90fc224ecfd.png)  
It is good information, but this really should be somewhere at the top, shoudn’t it?  
Gallium is obsolete, so who is going to visit?

It is a pity Github organizations have no facilities for displaying information about them.  
There is only the one-line description.

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### Author: ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 1:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/5 "2020-10-02T13:14:15Z")

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The Julia documentation has _no_ information on debugging.  
I guess there was no time in the past, but isn’t it time this information  
was included?

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### Author: ![Oscar\_Smith](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oscar_smith/32/25343_2.png) [@Oscar\_Smith](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Oscar_Smith)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 1:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/6 "2020-10-02T13:43:16Z")

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I think this is just a consequence of the face that Julia’s docs are mostly reference rather than tutorial focused. I think it would be a great idea for Julia Computing to hire someone to give the docs a fairly major overflow. Ideally, we would have an official tutorial style set of docs, and cut the our docs to more of a reference.

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### Author: ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 1:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/7 "2020-10-02T13:45:03Z")

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> [@Non-friendly documentation](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/non-friendly-documentation/38109/135):
>
> I would like to point out that I found the Julia manual helpful when I started using it. But in truth some of the things made sense only a long way down the road, and some I skipped, at least initially. In my opinion the manual blurs together the four kinds of user documentation, with attendant reduction in efficiency. In other words, the four “boxes” are visited in this single document with little or no separation. I personally try to follow in my own packages the view of the sw…

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### Author: ![Oscar\_Smith](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oscar_smith/32/25343_2.png) [@Oscar\_Smith](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Oscar_Smith)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/8 "2020-10-02T13:52:02Z")

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Yeah. The question on my mind is it it’s possible for us to make the switch without someone dedicated to doing it. Given how big our current docs are, fixing this would take a ton of work, and can’t really be broken up into small pieces.

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### Author: ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 1:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/9 "2020-10-02T13:54:58Z")

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No, someone has to champion the remake, and someone has to do the work.  
It will be a major effort, but in the long run I believe it is essential.

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### Author: ![Palli](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/palli/32/3380_2.png) [@Palli](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Palli)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 2:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/10 "2020-10-02T14:09:51Z")

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> [@PetrKryslUCSD](#):
>
> a pity Github organizations have no facilities for displaying information about them

You can pin repositories (somehow), and maybe the most useful/active ones should be, as a hint to those most (three) useful:

I use none of these (directly) except for [Infiltrator.jl](https://github.com/JuliaDebug/Infiltrator.jl) which is pretty neat. I guess I’ll use the debuggers in IDEs eventually, VSCode (maybe Juno, still use both), but that doesn’t apply to you (none for your favorite editor? other than in the REPL), and most users are going to use (that) IDE and need not look up anything.

I’m also told [Cthulhu.jl](https://github.com/JuliaDebug/Cthulhu.jl) is pretty neat. EDIT: I forgot, Rebugger.jl seems very neat too.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/11 "2020-10-02T14:11:34Z")

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I don’t remember where I saw that, but I think VSCode has ~30% of Julia users.  
That leaves 70% hunting for answers…

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### Author: ![Palli](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/palli/32/3380_2.png) [@Palli](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Palli)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 2:13pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/12 "2020-10-02T14:13:16Z")

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It has over 50% of all developers, and likely will also for Julia. It doesn’t leave out 70% if (larger still?) have Juno.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-juliadebug-repo-how-to-be-helpful-to-newbies-and-old-hands-as-well/47618/13 "2020-10-02T14:39:01Z")

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> [@What if I want a simpler IDE for Julia?](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-if-i-want-a-simpler-ide-for-julia/31142/91):
>
> And because the thread is popular and everyone loves bragging about their editor: What tools do you use for developing you Julia code? [poll](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/what-if-i-want-a-simpler-ide-for-julia/31142/91) If I forgot your favorite tool, please let me know.
