Getting Unstuck: Using the Scientific Method for Debugging

Have you ever gotten really stuck while trying to understand the cause of a bug? Thinking of your debugging session as a science experiment, and using the scientific method can help you make progress again. Come and learn how to adapt the scientific method (the process used for scientific research) to get past that stuck place and find the cause of bugs or production incidents. You’ll walk away with a great new tool to keep you calm and focused in the face of inevitable bugs.

Transcript

1. Getting Unstuck: Using the Scientific Method For Debugging @CarolineTaymor Software Engineer at Pivotal Cloud Foundry
2. Who has ever gotten stuck while debugging? @CarolineTaymor Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby
3. Photo courtesy of @usefulguy Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
4. The Scientific Method Make your debugging a science experiment Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
5. The plan ◎ When ◎ What ◎ How ◎ Why Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
6. When should I use the Scientific Method for debugging? Photo courtesy of Nick Amuscato Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
7. Two types of stuck Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
8. • “It could be any one of 1000 things!” • Overwhelmed • Bewildered • You notice impossible things Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor When you have TOO MUCH info Two types of stuck heuristic from Jesse Alford
9. • “I can’t think of anything” • Frustrated • Stalled • “I have no more ideas” Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor When you have TOO LITTLE info Two types of stuck heuristic from Jesse Alford
10. What is the Scientific Method? The process for doing science! Photo courtesy of Nick Amuscato Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor A way to learn about the world!
11. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
12. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
13. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
14. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
15. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
16. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
17. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
18. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
19. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
20. How do you debug with the Scientific Method? Photo courtesy of Nick Amuscato Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
21. Write it down Middle photo courtesy of #WoCinTechChat Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
22. Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor A temp file in my text editor
23. Gather Existing Knowledge Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
24. Ask Questions Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
25. Make a hypothesis An educated guess Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
26. Design an Experiment What do you need to know to (dis)prove your hypothesis? Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
27. Run the Experiment Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
28. Take good notes Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor On the expected and the unexpected
29. Annotate Log Snippets @CarolineTaymor Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby
30. // The time between staging and container creation phase used up // 52 seconds of our 3 minute timeout. In a healthy system, the // time between these loglines is usually takes 3-4 seconds. // application logs for c86b59e0-049b-483d-ac93-31c3942774a5 // Time in UTC. This is 5:45:52 AM PDT. The deploy started at 5 AM PDT // Logs from diego.out.log on cell 100 2017-10-19T12:45:51.05 [STG/0] OUT Destroying container 2017-10-19T12:45:52.91 [STG/0] OUT Successfully destroyed container 2017-10-19T12:46:44.78 [CELL/0] OUT Creating container 2017-10-19T12:46:45.08 [CELL/0] OUT Successfully created container Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
31. // The time between staging and container creation phase used up // 52 seconds of our 3 minute timeout. In a healthy system, the // time between these loglines is usually takes 3-4 seconds. // application logs for c86b59e0-049b-483d-ac93-31c3942774a5 // Time in UTC. This is 5:45:52 AM PDT. The deploy started at 5 AM PDT // Logs from diego.out.log on cell 100 2017-10-19T12:45:51.05 [STG/0] OUT Destroying container 2017-10-19T12:45:52.91 [STG/0] OUT Successfully destroyed container 2017-10-19T12:46:44.78 [CELL/0] OUT Creating container 2017-10-19T12:46:45.08 [CELL/0] OUT Successfully created container Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
32. // The time between staging and container creation phase used up // 52 seconds of our 3 minute timeout. In a healthy system, the // time between these loglines is usually takes 3-4 seconds. // application logs for c86b59e0-049b-483d-ac93-31c3942774a5 // Time in UTC. This is 5:45:52 AM PDT. The deploy started at 5 AM PDT // Logs from diego.out.log on cell 100 2017-10-19T12:45:51.05 [STG/0] OUT Destroying container 2017-10-19T12:45:52.91 [STG/0] OUT Successfully destroyed container 2017-10-19T12:46:44.78 [CELL/0] OUT Creating container 2017-10-19T12:46:45.08 [CELL/0] OUT Successfully created container Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
33. // The time between staging and container creation phase used up // 52 seconds of our 3 minute timeout. In a healthy system, the // time between these loglines is usually takes 3-4 seconds. // application logs for c86b59e0-049b-483d-ac93-31c3942774a5 // Time in UTC. This is 5:45:52 AM PDT. The deploy started at 5 AM PDT // Logs from diego.out.log on cell 100 2017-10-19T12:45:51.05 [STG/0] OUT Destroying container 2017-10-19T12:45:52.91 [STG/0] OUT Successfully destroyed container 2017-10-19T12:46:44.78 [CELL/0] OUT Creating container 2017-10-19T12:46:45.08 [CELL/0] OUT Successfully created container Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
34. // The time between staging and container creation phase used up // 52 seconds of our 3 minute timeout. In a healthy system, the // time between these loglines is usually takes 3-4 seconds. // application logs for c86b59e0-049b-483d-ac93-31c3942774a5 // Time in UTC. This is 5:45:52 AM PDT. The deploy started at 5 AM PDT // Logs from diego.out.log on cell 100 2017-10-19T12:45:51.05 [STG/0] OUT Destroying container 2017-10-19T12:45:52.91 [STG/0] OUT Successfully destroyed container 2017-10-19T12:46:44.78 [CELL/0] OUT Creating container 2017-10-19T12:46:45.08 [CELL/0] OUT Successfully created container Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
35. // The time between staging and container creation phase used up // 52 seconds of our 3 minute timeout. In a healthy system, the // time between these loglines is usually takes 3-4 seconds. // application logs for c86b59e0-049b-483d-ac93-31c3942774a5 // Time in UTC. This is 5:45:52 AM PDT. The deploy started at 5 AM PDT // Logs from diego.out.log on cell 100 2017-10-19T12:45:51.05 [STG/0] OUT Destroying container 2017-10-19T12:45:52.91 [STG/0] OUT Successfully destroyed container 2017-10-19T12:46:44.78 [CELL/0] OUT Creating container 2017-10-19T12:46:45.08 [CELL/0] OUT Successfully created container Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
36. Come to a conclusion Was your hypothesis disproved? Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
37. Circle Back Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor ◎ Bug solutions ◎ Old Questions ◎ New questions ◎ New experiments
38. Share what you learned Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
39. Why is the Scientific Method helpful for debugging? 1. Collaboration 2. Get Unstuck 3. Keep Moving Forward Photo courtesy of Nick Amuscato Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
40. 1. Collaboration Photo courtesy of #WoCinTechChat Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
41. “ Iterative experiments are easy to summarize Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
42. Skip the dead ends Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
43. “ Many low cost experiments make compromise easier Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
44. Avoid repeat investigations Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
45. 2. Get unstuck By narrowing your focus Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
46. “How do I disprove this hypothesis?” is actionable Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
47. “ Writing down what you know helps organize your thoughts Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
48. 3. Keep Moving Forward Photo courtesy of Jan Kraus Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
49. Don’t Repeat Yourself Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
50. Each iteration moves you forward Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
51. We covered ◎ When - you’re stuck on complex bugs ◎ What - The process of doing science ◎ How - with lots of writing ◎ Why - the scientific method helps you collaborate, get unstuck, and keep moving forward Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
52. Gather Knowledge Ask Questions Make a Hypothesis Design an Experiment Run the Experiment Take Good Notes Make a Conclusion Share Out Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
53. “ Write it down Getting Unstuck | Fog City Ruby @CarolineTaymor
54. Any Questions? Template courtesy of SlidesCarnival Reference Guide at tech.taymor.io/posts/getting-unstuck @CarolineTaymor