{"slug": "rad-debugger", "name": "RAD Debugger", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 6, "warners": 1, "score": 3.38, "rising": -1.64, "first": "2025-12-18", "latest": "2026-07-14", "why": "Probably the most responsive debugger out there is RAD Debugger", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 1, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Probably the most responsive debugger out there is RAD Debugger", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/epicgamesext/raddebugger", "official_url": "https://github.com/EpicGamesExt/raddebugger", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["RAD Debugger"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 782388464, "item_id": 48899279, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899279", "by": "jstimpfle", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a serious application built without RAII, which leans heavily into arenas", "excerpt": ">> raddebugger > In what world does this have anything to do with anything being talked about? You need to focus. Like, in the world where I've referenced this in 3 of my 4 previous comments, as an example of a serious application built without RAII, which leans heavily into arenas, resulting in extremely compact and fast code? > Why don't you say what it is they actually have to say about destructors? Is this an exa", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the Odin Programming Language"}, {"id": 782306016, "item_id": 48894126, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48894126", "by": "jstimpfle", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "cloning the raddebugger, 3 seconds to build it, and 0.5 seconds to launch it, to be convinced that it is a solid product", "excerpt": "I told you what to check out. I'm not regurgitating this, I've done it often enough. Have you spent 1 minute cloning the raddebugger, 3 seconds to build it, and 0.5 seconds to launch it, to be convinced that it is a solid product? > It's you and the three guys you are fans of against the entire world of systems programming What is this \"entire world of systems programming\"? From what I've seen, there are very few acc", "context": "", "use_case": "debugging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the Odin Programming Language"}, {"id": 757345744, "item_id": 47334109, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47334109", "by": "lylejantzi3rd", "date": "2026-03-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Could be worth a gander.", "excerpt": "Probably. The RADDBG folks recently created their own debug format (RDI) to replace PDB and DWARF. Could be worth a gander. https://github.com/EpicGamesExt/raddebugger?tab=readme-ov-file#the-rad-debug-info-rdi-format", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Standardizing Source Maps"}, {"id": 754035121, "item_id": 47127195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47127195", "by": "leecommamichael", "date": "2026-02-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Probably the most responsive debugger out there is RAD Debugger", "excerpt": "> What about when you're embedding your GUI into an existing application? or for use on an already taxed system? You should check out the gamedev scene. It's soft real-time, and yet dearIMGUI is the choice for tooling. Immediate-mode is an API-design, not the implementation details. All Immediate-mode GUIs retain data some data, and for that reason they each have their own APIs for retaining data in various capacitie", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I learned designing a barebones UI engine"}, {"id": 751121650, "item_id": 46945103, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945103", "by": "nananana9", "date": "2026-02-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "modern desktop UI applications with all the modern desktop UI application bells and whistles", "excerpt": "You're clearly well-traveled, but it's unfortunate that none of the frameworks you listed follow the only UI paradigm I actually find enjoyable to work with. Look Immediate Mode UIs when you have some time to kill. It's a famous paradigm in videogame UI development, so unfortunately most publicly available IMGUI libraries are tailored for use in game engine editor tooling (not very style-able, simple layout algorithm", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Broken Heart"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 782531936, "item_id": 48908246, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48908246", "by": "CyberDildonics", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Here's a complex memory cleanup race condition that's 'solved' with a sleep function.", "excerpt": "To recap, there are all sort of detrimental effects to just freeing memory when a variable goes out of scope, but they can't be explained or demonstrated in any way. I could tell it was all going to go this way from the second comment, I'm always fascinated by people with rock solid beliefs that can't explain them in any way. I can NOT demonstrate it in a tiny godbolt because the effects I am talking about don't appl", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the Odin Programming Language"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["debugging"], "compared": [{"slug": "dear-imgui", "name": "Dear ImGui", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48880499", "title": "Understanding the Odin Programming Language", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47331802", "title": "Standardizing Source Maps", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47117946", "title": "What I learned designing a barebones UI engine", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46844393", "title": "A Broken Heart", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46240855", "title": "Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 782531936, "item_id": 48908246, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48908246", "by": "CyberDildonics", "date": "2026-07-14", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Here's a complex memory cleanup race condition that's 'solved' with a sleep function.", "excerpt": "To recap, there are all sort of detrimental effects to just freeing memory when a variable goes out of scope, but they can't be explained or demonstrated in any way. I could tell it was all going to go this way from the second comment, I'm always fascinated by people with rock solid beliefs that can't explain them in any way. I can NOT demonstrate it in a tiny godbolt because the effects I am talking about don't appl", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the Odin Programming Language"}, {"id": 782388464, "item_id": 48899279, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899279", "by": "jstimpfle", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a serious application built without RAII, which leans heavily into arenas", "excerpt": ">> raddebugger > In what world does this have anything to do with anything being talked about? You need to focus. Like, in the world where I've referenced this in 3 of my 4 previous comments, as an example of a serious application built without RAII, which leans heavily into arenas, resulting in extremely compact and fast code? > Why don't you say what it is they actually have to say about destructors? Is this an exa", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the Odin Programming Language"}, {"id": 782306016, "item_id": 48894126, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48894126", "by": "jstimpfle", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "cloning the raddebugger, 3 seconds to build it, and 0.5 seconds to launch it, to be convinced that it is a solid product", "excerpt": "I told you what to check out. I'm not regurgitating this, I've done it often enough. Have you spent 1 minute cloning the raddebugger, 3 seconds to build it, and 0.5 seconds to launch it, to be convinced that it is a solid product? > It's you and the three guys you are fans of against the entire world of systems programming What is this \"entire world of systems programming\"? From what I've seen, there are very few acc", "context": "", "use_case": "debugging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the Odin Programming Language"}, {"id": 757345744, "item_id": 47334109, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47334109", "by": "lylejantzi3rd", "date": "2026-03-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Could be worth a gander.", "excerpt": "Probably. The RADDBG folks recently created their own debug format (RDI) to replace PDB and DWARF. Could be worth a gander. https://github.com/EpicGamesExt/raddebugger?tab=readme-ov-file#the-rad-debug-info-rdi-format", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Standardizing Source Maps"}, {"id": 754035121, "item_id": 47127195, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47127195", "by": "leecommamichael", "date": "2026-02-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Probably the most responsive debugger out there is RAD Debugger", "excerpt": "> What about when you're embedding your GUI into an existing application? or for use on an already taxed system? You should check out the gamedev scene. It's soft real-time, and yet dearIMGUI is the choice for tooling. Immediate-mode is an API-design, not the implementation details. All Immediate-mode GUIs retain data some data, and for that reason they each have their own APIs for retaining data in various capacitie", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I learned designing a barebones UI engine"}, {"id": 751121650, "item_id": 46945103, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46945103", "by": "nananana9", "date": "2026-02-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "modern desktop UI applications with all the modern desktop UI application bells and whistles", "excerpt": "You're clearly well-traveled, but it's unfortunate that none of the frameworks you listed follow the only UI paradigm I actually find enjoyable to work with. Look Immediate Mode UIs when you have some time to kill. It's a famous paradigm in videogame UI development, so unfortunately most publicly available IMGUI libraries are tailored for use in game engine editor tooling (not very style-able, simple layout algorithm", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Broken Heart"}, {"id": 741052465, "item_id": 46315779, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46315779", "by": "troupo", "date": "2025-12-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "See RAD Debugger (https://github.com/EpicGamesExt/raddebugger)", "excerpt": "> Especially for people who have never attempted to write the software they are criticizing. E.g. Casey and Blow often criticise the Visual Studio debugger. It's slow, has quite limited functionality. And it progressively gets worse over time (e.g. it can no longer update watched values at the same speed as you step through the program). Do they both have to write a debugger to demonstrate how bad it is? No. Other pe", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles"}]}