[seanmceligot]

Break-point debuggers take too long in most environments (with a few exceptions). I use linters, compilers and type checkers as my first line of defense. Next, logging and unit tests. Lastly, I like to have in interactive command line REPL with good tab completion if one is available and not to difficult to setup.

In python, for example I use: pycodestyle, pyflakes, mypy and logging, and bpython.

For web apps, reload time is the most important factor. Work on reducing the time to compile, reload and test.

[roca]

But have you used a really good debugger, e.g. a record-and-replay debugger that lets you jump back in time to where some selected variable was modified?

The whole point of the OP was that just about all debuggers suck, but debuggers can be a lot more powerful.