Confident Programmer Debugging Guide: Confident Programmer

By Cloudy Heaven Games

This guide will help you to boost your debugging skills.

Debugging is a critical skill for software developers and programmers, but it is not often taught well in many computer science classes. This guide gets you started on your way to becoming a more effective and confident debugger.

Next time you face a list of pesky bugs and feel frustration rising, check this guide to help keep crashes from becoming showstoppers!

This guide includes:

- A real-life example from a major project I worked on, complete with lessons and guidelines.
- Tips on how to stay calm and maintain your sanity when you are frustrated and overwhelmed by your bug list.
- Suggestions on how to research and find information on those pesky error messages.
- A sample bug tracker tool to help you stay organized.
- A debugging checklist to help you figure out the next step.
- A guided debugging exercise, complete with Java code and explanation, and suitable for beginners.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cloudy Heaven Games
• Release date: Feb 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393285007

Cloudy Heaven Games

As an independent game development company, we create games with a focus on good game design and software development principles, because we feel that great software of any kind, is based on a solid development process. In addition to creating games, we offer educational opportunities and resources for aspiring software developers and designers, for all kinds of software development, not just games. Through our unique combination of games and education, we provide you with the tools to build your own heaven, whether through fun games or the software career of your dreams! Favorite games include: Final Fantasy series (particularly 4 and 6), Chrono Trigger, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the Fallout and Oblivion series, and many more! As you can probably tell, RPGs are pretty popular here! Favorite books: Can't pick just one, but fantasy series such as Dragonlance and Lord of the Rings are up there. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are particular favorite authors. Any books about my favorite games (such as the Japanese-language Ultimania series) are also great. However I do like a variety of genres, especially educational and nonfiction books. You can pretty much always find me with a book of some kind.

Book preview

Confident Programmer Debugging Guide

Confident Programmer

Cloudy Heaven Games

Published by Cloudy Heaven Games, 2020.

Confident Programmer Debugging Guide

Published by Cloudy Heaven Games at Draft2Digital

Copyright 2020 Cloudy Heaven Games

Draft2Digital Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Introduction

A Debugging Story

The Problem Child

Tackling the Problem

Making Some Progress

Phantom Characters

Documenting Lessons Learned

Key Debugging Lessons

Gather any available output and data at the time of the crash.

Replicate the bug to get more information.

Take note of specific error messages, and identify parts of the code that seem to be related to the problem.

Know how to research error messages and find relevant information

Isolate the problem and get as much tracing/output data as you can, to track the course of the problem.

Be familiar with your software tools, so that you know how you can find and solve potential problems.

Once you've identified and fixed the problem, rerun the code with all test cases.

Document and share the lessons you learn while solving a bug.

How to Be a Calm, Confident Debugger

Understand the problem you are trying to solve.

Calmly establish the facts of the situation.

Know how and when to reach out for help.

Keep notes about the situation as you work through the bug.

Take a step away from the problem.

If you have a lot of bugs, use a bug tracking tool.

Using a Bug Tracker

A Debugging Process Checklist and Flow

The Checklist and Flow

A Practice Example

Not So Fast...

Identifying the Problem

Breaking Down the Program (Spoiler Alert!!!)

Doing Some Research

Putting It Together

A Possible Solution

...But Not Quite!

Another Handy Tip: Comparing Files

One Last Exercise

Some Recommended Resources

Accompanying Files

Text Editor

Search Engine and Research Skills

Bug Trackers and Defect Management

More About My Work

Appendix: Java Exercise Files

Numbers.java

Comments and Explanation on Numbers.java

Numbers2.java

Comments and Explanation on Numbers2.java

Numbers3.java

Comments and Explanation on Numbers3.java

Introduction

As a tutor, I often find that debugging even seemingly simple errors is a difficult task for many of my students. To be blunt, they usually have no idea how to even start approaching the problem. Sometimes they've been unable to make progress with an programming project, until our next session, in which I can help them fix the error in just a few minutes. So much frustration for them, and so much wasted time!

I've noticed that a lot of computer science courses don't seem to spend much time teaching students how to debug. That's a shame, because debugging and problem-solving are critical skills, not just in computer science and programming, but in other fields as well, even if no actual code is involved. For example, even in a field like management, professionals have to understand how processes work, document them, and pinpoint problems that occur so that they can develop, implement, and test solutions.

This guide is my attempt to help developers get better at debugging. It's mostly geared towards beginners, as experienced developers usually have a set of tools and tricks they've honed over the years, but anyone who feels they could use some improvement is welcome. As such, if an example seems to simple, or I seem like I'm