Edit and Continue vs. Einstein

Continuing the discussion with Einstein, the prototypcial C++ developer. 

Einstein often creates software solutions to some pretty complex problems.  He spends a lot of time trying thinking about different approaches to the problem, and tries to pick the best one.  He knows the structure of his code, and can describe it to you on a napkin. 

With a complex peice of software comes complicated bugs.  When the steps to reproduce a bug are bigger then your 20“ flat panel; when the call stack has 100 frames on it, when you have to configure the database just so to get the bug, you can end up spending a big portion of your day just creating a repro.  I would say the repro is “deep“.

In this case, have Edit and Continue can let you get a lot of mileage out of one repro effort.  Once you get the repro set up & understand what's happening, you can try out a fix without repeating the whole repro. 

Note that this is quite different from the Mort approach.  Einstein has a deep understanding of the code, and isn't looking to experiement.  Here I'd say E&C is more of a productivity tool than an “enabler“.