What is the difference between start debugging and Run without debugging

Question

I'm building a flutter app in VsCode

When am ready to lunch my app I use Run -> start debugging in vsCose

But alternatively I can use Run -> Run without debugging

So what the difference between the two?

Solution 1

In Debug mode, you can pause your application at so called break points. This can help you to find bugs in your code. You can also figure out, which values your variables consist at a speficic part in your application.

You can set a break point by double clicking on the left of a line number where you want to pause your code from running (see here: debug break point example)

Solution 2

Debug mode is for development. As such, the binaries are larger and slower, because they have e.g. the names of all your functions stored alongside line number information for debug tracing to work. Hot reloading is also an important feature of development or debug mode.

When you run in production mode, all the debug information is stripped away, the app loads much faster, and all debug information is elided from the binary that is produced. It is for end-use.