timetravelpdb

Enhances the Python Debugger to add the ability to travel back in time.

Have you ever been using PDB to step through a program and suddenly realize you wish you could jump back in time and know what a variable used to contain?

This version of PDB adds the ability to jump back in time to the state of your program as it was in the past. You can examine variables and even continue execution from that point forward (though that is dangerous because it may harm the time space continuum.)

How it works:

As you know, time is the 4th dimension. Every moment is another universe. Pretty trippy, eh?

TTPDB simply records a pointer to the current universe before displaying the input prompt. As you step through your program, each step records a pointer to the past universes. The last 100 pointers are remembered. You can jump into any of those universes. Once in those universes you can examine variables. Heck you can do anything you want because you are really in that universe.

Once you are done with that universe you can "pop up" back to the universe you left thanks to our time portal technology.

Q: When I'm in another universe, can I run the code? A: Yes. However if you modify anything outside of your python process there's a chance you will create a hole in the time-space continuum and destroy the universe.

Q: Can I use the "record universe" function while in another universe? A: Of course! In fact, while in those past universes do a "ulist" to see the universes recorded so far. You'll notice that there are fewer items on the list. That's because when you were in that moment of time, the others hadn't been recorded yet. Stepping through the program will now make a new branch of history. You can jump between those universes, pop up back to where you came from, and so on. It can be a little confusing but, heck, time travel always is.

Q: Why did you release this on April Fools Day? A: Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Q: Is this to promote your "Time Management for System Administrators" book? A: This one? http://everythingsysadmin.com/books.html No, not at all. It's to promote my next book which won't be out until October 2014: The Practice of Cloud Administration. http://everythingsysadmin.com/2014/03/sneak-preview.html Oh, and it certainly isn't promoting my RFC April Fools book: http://rfchumor.com/

Q: Are you really traveling back in time? A: No. Everyone knows it isn't possible to actually travel back in time. All we have of the past is our memories. What this does is use a feature of the Unix kernel that has been there since the 1970s to record a snapshot of absolutely everything about the process and jump between these memories. This feature is greatly misunderstood by most Unix users.

could. But we can't. | Instead we have our old memories and that has to be good enough. And, to be honest, what most of us need more than the abilty to travel back in time is the ability to let go of the past.