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Debugging with the Scientific Method
Stuart Halloway edited this page Mar 7, 2019
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People see debugging as an occult art, when often it is the easiest part of software development. Debugging is a perfect closed world in which to apply the scientific method.
The scientific method integrates
- problem statements
- testable hypotheses
- observation
- refinement
to produce a theory. With the tips and tricks in this talk, you can stop the random walk of frustration and move relentlessly towards finding and squashing bugs.
See the video of this talk from Clojure/conj 2015.
- Read Andreas Zeller's excellent Why Programs Fail, particularly chapters 5-7 and 11-14. Zeller is also the instructor for the Udacity course on debugging.
- David Agans' Debugging book is a good introduction to many of the same ideas.
- Blithe Rocher gave a nice Scientific Method of Troubleshooting talk at Distill 2014.