Addy Osmani’s Post

There are many valid Debugging Tactics :) When you're debugging a system, the first step is to accept that what you believe about how it works might not be true. If everything were as you believe it to be, then your code would work—but obviously that's not always the case. I'll share a few (common) debugging techniques that have worked well for me I just posted: https://lnkd.in/gHpbKnDc Take a walk ---------------------- One of the best tools to debug code is walking away for 10-15 minutes If you recognize that you are frustrated, stuck on a tricky problem, or running around in circles—take a break. A five to fifteen minute walk will help re-energize and reset your physiological state. You may return with new solutions! Sometimes all we need is a little perspective to help us solve our problems. Rubberducking ---------------------------- When you explain a problem to someone else, the important thing is not just who you're speaking with but that in doing so, you are also explaining it to yourself. When you teach someone else, you often find inconsistencies in your assumptions about the subject and are forced to take a new perspective. Actually read the error message -------------------------------- Something often overlooked when debugging is to read the error message. Your tools usually give you a lot of information about the problem, and it can be more helpful than you think. Read the docs -------------------------------- Read the docs before trying to debug This is an obvious one, but it's often overlooked. I've seen people jump through all kinds of hoops in order to figure out why something they're doing isn't working, when all they had to do was read the documentation and realize that they were using a function or method incorrectly. Run the same code again ---------------------------------------------- If you have a problem that is intermittent, then running the same code again may help diagnose the issue. This can be helpful if you are trying to diagnose: - A timing issue - Race condition - Code with non-deterministic execution - Code influenced by external factors like network latency 1st page of Googling / StackOverflow -------------------------------------- You can often find other people who have run into the same problem and solved it, or at least have some ideas on how to approach the problem. Logging ------------------- Developers often insert temporary logging statements (e.g. console.log(), print) in the code to check values during code execution. You can also use these statements to check the values of variables in between lines of code. Conclusion --------------------- There are many valid approaches to debugging. Questions you can ask yourself: What is the goal of the code? What does the code actually do? What are the issues you found with the code? Have you encountered these kinds of issues before? What did you do to fix them last time? What do you think caused the bugs? #softwareengineering #programming