1. A method comprising: receiving, at a computer system, debugging configuration information specifying a functional area of a data stream processing server to be debugged, the functional area corresponding to at least one query plan object in a query plan associated with a continuous query; identifying, by the computer system, the at least one query plan object in the query plan associated with the functional area that has been instantiated by the data stream processing server; identifying, by the computer system, from the debugging configuration information, a first parameter identifying one or more events that cause debugging of the at least one query plan object, a second parameter identifying a level of detail for debugging the at least one query plan object, and a third parameter specifying a type of the at least one query plan object to be debugged, the level of detail determined based at least in part on the type of the at least one query plan object to be debugged; determining, by the computer system, that tracing for the at least one query plan object is enabled to perform debugging of the at least one query plan object based at least in part on the first parameter, the second parameter and the third parameter, the first parameter, the second parameter and the third parameter being different from each other; instantiating, by the computer system, a tracelet associated with the at least one query plan object, the tracelet including a segment of code for debugging the at least one query plan object; stepping, by the computer system, through the tracelet associated with the at least one query plan object to debug the at least one query plan object; and displaying, by the computer system, a visual representation of debugging results associated with the at least one query plan object.