Valgrind og printf

I like that Learn C The Hard Way puts such emphasis on tools that'll help me diagnose. Although I had to jump through some technical support hoops to overcome a few errors i encountered with Valgrind:

• I was missing some libraries


• And I had to use an extra argument that the book didn't need

But I don't get the constant use of printf - it's suuuch a boring method.

In sum I only got two chapters further, and didn't feel all the wiser. Perhaps I'll just ditch the extra credits until it gets tougher.