Efficient Debugging in Python: 5 Best Practices You Need to Know

Improve your Python development skills with these 5 essential debugging best practices

Generated by Moez Ali using Midjourney

Introduction

Debugging code is an essential part of any software development process. Even experienced developers can make mistakes, and troubleshooting these errors can be time-consuming and frustrating. In Python, however, there are several best practices that can make the debugging process faster and more efficient. In this blog post, we will discuss 5 of the best practices for debugging code in Python that can help you catch errors quickly and easily.

1. Use print statements

One of the simplest and most effective ways to debug Python code is by using print statements. This involves strategically placing print statements in your code to output specific values at certain points in the code’s execution. By examining these outputs, you can quickly identify where the code is breaking or producing unexpected results.

Suppose we have a function that is supposed to calculate the sum of a list of integers. However, we’re getting an incorrect result and need to debug the code using print statements. Here’s how we could implement this using print statements:

def sum_list(numbers):
    total = 0
    for num…