3D3ds·Jan 10, 2025
These two gems have been superseded by the `debug` gem.
https://github.com/ruby/debug
In Glimmer: DSL Framework for Ruby GUI and Moreruby
debug
Ruby2023–2025
ruby / debug
debug
Debugging functionality for Ruby
6Distinct people
6Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
1.3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Debugging functionality for Ruby
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 11:56:56 AM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by month6 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2023-11-22 17:24:48 UTC to 2025-01-10 11:29:20 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2023 | 2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Dec 2023 | 2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Jan 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Feb 2024 | 2024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2024 | 2024-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2024 | 2024-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| May 2024 | 2024-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 2024 | 2024-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2024 | 2024-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2024 | 2024-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2024 | 2024-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 2024 | 2024-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nov 2024 | 2024-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 2024 | 2024-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
6 sourcesI've written Ruby for coming up on 20 years, so to be honest I haven't paid attention to what is written on that subject in recent years - just kept up on the tools.
Bundler shouldn't be running inside a trap context, but you might be running into a situation where standard input/output from the actual process triggering your breakpoint has been redirected. In that case, ruby-debug[1] is a good option, as you attach to it from outside[2]. Basically, run "rdbg --open yourscript.rb" and then use rdbg -A from another terminal.
You use Pry remotely too[3] if you prefer.
[1] https://github.com/ruby/debug
[2] https://github.com/ruby/debug?tab=readme-ov-file#remote-debu...
[3] https://github.com/Mon-Ouie/pry-remote
In Metaprogramming in Ruby: It's All About the Self (2009)> debugger
Check out the latest IRB on 3.3, it finally gives Pry a run for its money, especially when jumping into the debugger!
https://github.com/ruby/irb#debugging-with-irb
$ ruby test.rb
From: test.rb @ line 7 :
1: def foo
2: 10.times do |i|
3: p i
4: end
5: end
6:
=> 7: binding.irb
8:
9: foo
irb(main):001> break 9
(rdbg:irb) break 9
#0 BP - Line /Users/loic.nageleisen/test.rb:9 (line)
irb:rdbg(main):002> break 3
#1 BP - Line /Users/loic.nageleisen/test.rb:3 (line)
irb:rdbg(main):003> continue
[4, 9] in test.rb
4| end
5| end
6|
7| binding.irb
8|
=> 9| foo
=>#0 <main> at test.rb:9
Stop by #0 BP - Line /Users/loic.nageleisen/test.rb:9 (
Read the rest
line)
irb:rdbg(main):004> continue
[1, 9] in test.rb
1| def foo
2| 10.times do |i|
=> 3| p i
4| end
5| end
6|
7| binding.irb
8|
9| foo
=>#0 block {|i=0|} in foo at test.rb:3
#1 Integer#times at <internal:numeric>:237
# and 2 frames (use `bt' command for all frames)
Stop by #1 BP - Line /Users/loic.nageleisen/test.rb:3 (line)
irb:rdbg(main):005> bt
=>#0 block {|i=0|} in foo at test.rb:3
#1 Integer#times at <internal:numeric>:237
#2 Object#foo at test.rb:2
#3 <main> at test.rb:9
irb:rdbg(main):006>
See also the debug gem by itself:
- https://github.com/ruby/debug#debug-command-on-the-debug-con...
- https://github.com/ruby/debug#remote-debugging
- https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=KoichiSa...
what is ruby debug not able to do that you want it to do?
https://github.com/ruby/debug
a nice ide integrated experience:
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/ruby#_debugging...
https://github.com/ruby/vscode-rdbg
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/debugging
heavy metaprogramming in any language is going to be a pain to debug so i'm not sure what you're expecting but there are tools to help. you can also call source_location on some method to figure out where things exist.
In Ruby 3.3In 2017, I wrote a toy language called Goby[1] to learn how Ruby works. A few folks contributed quite a bit to it and one of them later referred me to my previous job (as a backend developer).
Fast-forward to 2021, I got interested in debugging tools so I started contributing to the then newly created Ruby debugger[2]. In less than a year I opened more than a hundred PRs and became the 2nd biggest contributor of it. And that eventually landed me a job to work on Ruby's development tools, like LSP servers, REPLs, and of course, the debugger :-)
[1] https://github.com/goby-lang/goby
[2] https://github.com/ruby/debug
In Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?Fun fact, Ruby as a single-threaded language is probably the only way how most people experience it, but...
Ruby has a rich cooperative multitasking called Fibers that hopefully is getting more exposure, in amongst a bevy of competing implementations and other also-ran concurrency primitives (besides the usual contenders like Threads, Process fork, foreman that just runs several processes alongside one another...)
https://github.com/ruby/debug/issues/486#issuecomment-157531...
If you want to use debugging and multi-threaded or multi-fiber Ruby at once, you can! You just have to get a bit creative. I always refer back to this thread on the Ruby `debug` gem (though the advice applies to any other REPL you can use) about applying a Mutex. You can use the built-in Fiber.blocking to prevent other fibers from running at the same time as yours,
Read the rest
or you can use a Mutex to just ensure that you don't hit the debugger multiple times in the same process IO that would mean you've got multiple REPLs all grappling for the StdIO at once (but that other fibers can proceed, in case you were trying to debug something - you know - actually concurrent - and you really don't want for the world to stop and wait on your debugger!)
For a long time Ruby dev who almost never did concurrency unless it was facilitated by the OS, or before being exposed to it directly in other languages like Go, the Ruby "super power" remains intact, it's just a bit more mysterious with the concurrency stuff added. Ruby has amazing diversity in its concurrency tools, which is a nice way of saying "the language authors decided not to pick a king concurrent runtime/winning gem whilst all of the competing implementations were all a bit nascent and un-fully-formed!"
I like the bruno/fiber-scheduler but it looks like it is not the winner. It should be easy to switch to another fibers implementation, I think async is the crown champion now, but I still haven't been motivated to switch - the fiber-scheduler that is named fiber-scheduler has been good enough for me, despite shortcomings!