Developers Spend Just 1% of Coding Time Using VS Code's Debugger

"Building FlouState solo meant debugging felt like half the job. Those late-night sessions hunting down edge cases were exhausting - terminal full of `console.log()` statements, manually reproducing bugs, reading stack traces. After 3 months (203 hours tracked), I looked at my own data and saw something surprising: My Personal Breakdown (3 Months) 203 hours tracked, 649 coding sessions 0.2% debugging = 20 minutes over 3 months I spent 0.2% of my time using VS Code's debugger. That's 20 minutes over 3 months of active coding."

"Analysis of 11,805 coding sessions from 68 developers tracked over 3 months. Developers spend just 1.4% of their time using VS Code's debugger - most rely on console.log statements instead. Based on 11,805 coding sessions, 3,526 hours tracked Debugger Usage Across 68 Developers: 46.2% Writing code (includes console.log debugging) 28.7% Reading code (includes stack trace hunting) 23.7% Refactoring (includes removing debug logs) 1.4% Using VS Code debugger (breakpoints, step-through)"

Data from 68 developers over three months captured 11,805 coding sessions and 3,526 hours of active coding via FlouState automatic tracking. Sessions averaged 18 minutes of active coding within 30-minute intervals. Across all tracked time, 46.2% of activity was writing code (which includes console.log-based debugging), 28.7% was reading code (including stack trace investigation), 23.7% was refactoring (including removing debug logs), and only 1.4% involved use of VS Code’s integrated debugger. One developer recorded 203 hours across 649 sessions and used the VS Code debugger for just 0.2% of active time (20 minutes).

Read at Floustate