The Scientific Method of Troubleshooting

This version of the talk was presented at eurucamp 2014.

Transcript

1. The Scientific Method of Troubleshooting
2. @blithe
3. Big Nerd Ranch Atlanta, Georgia
4. Scientist
5. PhD in Physical Chemistry
6. Physics
7. Chemistry
8. 6 Years!
9. Experiments
10. Scientific Method
11. Developer < >
12. StackOverflow
13. Problem solved?
14. Learn anything?
15. Most Important Part
16. Scientific Method
17. Set of Techniques For Acquiring Knowledge
18. Methodical
19. Systematic
20. “Has anyone seen string interpolation fail?”
21. Define the Problem
22. Expected behavior? ! ! !
23. Expected behavior? ! Actual behavior? !
24. Expected behavior? ! Actual behavior? ! Criteria for success?
25. Do Your Research
26. Know your environment
27. Read the literature
28. Discussions
29. Make it fail!
30. Establish a Hypothesis
31. Design the Experiment
32. Divide and conquer!
33. Limit the variables
34. Try something weird
36. Hierarchy of Blame
37. Gather Data
38. Current status?
39. Read the error message!
40. Analyze Your Results
41. Problem solved? ! Learn anything?
42. Understand the Why
43. Future Experiments
44. Embrace the Success
45. Keep a Good Lab Notebook
47. You won’t remember
48. Logs aren’t enough
49. Commit Messages
50. Update the Docs
51. Contribute
53. Share the Knowledge
54. Thanks! @blithe