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The Scientific Method of Troubleshooting

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Avatar for Blithe Rocher Blithe Rocher
August 08, 2014
Programming
2
700

The Scientific Method of Troubleshooting

This version of the talk was presented at Distill 2014 and GoGaRuCo 2014.

Avatar for Blithe Rocher

Blithe Rocher

August 08, 2014
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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 2 3 4 5 6 7 1

  22. Expected behavior? ! ! !

  23. Expected behavior? ! Actual behavior? !

  24. Expected behavior? ! Actual behavior? ! Criteria for success?

  25. Do Your Research 3 4 5 6 7 Define 2

  26. Know your environment

  27. Read the literature

  28. Discussions

  29. Make it fail!

  30. Establish a Hypothesis 5 6 7 Define Research 4 3

  31. Design the Experiment 6 7 Define Research Hypothesis 5 4

  32. Divide and conquer!

  33. Limit the variables

  34. Try something weird

  35. None

  36. Hierarchy of Blame

  37. Gather Data 6 7 Define Research Hypothesis Experiment 5

  38. Current status?

  39. Read the error message!

  40. Analyze Your Results 7 Define Research Data Hypothesis Experiment 6

  41. Problem solved? ! Learn anything?

  42. Understand the Why

  43. Future Experiments

  44. Embrace the Success

  45. Keep a Good Lab Notebook Define Research Data Hypothesis Experiment

    Analyze 7
  46. None

  47. You won’t remember

  48. Logs aren’t enough

  49. Commit Messages

  50. Update the Docs

  51. Contribute

  52. None

  53. Share the Knowledge

  54. ! Questions? Thanks! @blithe