Consider this scenario. You’ve been given some work, and you’re stuck. Hours have become days. You’ve exhausted the internet. You’re starting to backtrack, delete work, and start over. Feeling defeated. To make matters worse, you haven’t told anybody. ...
Today I want to talk about a way I think about debugging: as a story that we tell to ourselves and each other. ...
I’m proud to announce the launch of my digital guide to software debugging, Don’t Stay Stuck: A Debugging Guide for Rising Engineers! ...
“I’m still getting this random 404.” Want to sound pro? Banish “random” from your software engineering vocabulary. ...
This is a response to “Don’t Guess” from the excellent “The Best Programmers I Know” by Matthias Endler. My goal is to crystallize my understanding of this trait. ...
If you’ve ever watched me debug, you might think I’m moving slowly. That’s because I try hard to find every marker on the debugging trail. I believe this is one of the most valuable skills in debugging. ...
In many group debugging sessions I’ve joined, a major technique being deployed is something I call “Try This” debugging. In this post, I’d like to talk about this anti-pattern, and consider a better way. ...
I saw a meme this week: a person debugging code, “My code doesn’t work. Let’s change nothing and run it again.” This is something that I’ve done. It seems pointless. But that’s not quite correct. ...
This is a list of all the best debugging tips I’ve picked up over the years. Some of these might seem obvious, yet we forget them when it counts. Debugging is a skill. You have to bring every tool you have to the job. ...
Perhaps you’re familiar with this scenario: you’re debugging and stuck. You’ve Googled, read some blog posts and docs. You return to your search engine, type some characters, and then something strange happens: the search engine autocompletes your question, and the results are all purple because they have been visited by you. I’ve come to recognize this moment as always a symptom of a broken mental model. ...
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