The Art of Debugging

Talk I gave at WeWork, Android NYC Meetup.

Synopsis.
Lisa Neigut, Android Engineer at Electric Objects, will run through types of errors, some fun problems she's had at EO with race conditions, common ways to find problems, tools available to you, and how to read thread dumps.

Event link: http://www.meetup.com/android-developers-nyc/events/227835405/

Transcript

1. THE ART OF DEBUGGING
2. WHAT IS A BUG??
4. NOT WORKING AS INTENDED
11. 3 BUG TYPES
12. BUG TYPE 1 PROBLEMS YOU CAN SEE: OK
13. BUG TYPE 2 PROBLEMS YOU CANNOT SEE: HARD
14. BUG TYPE 3 PROBLEMS YOU DO NOT KNOW EXIST: IMPOSSIBLE
17. STEP 1:
20. STEP 0: HOW TO DEAL
24. TRUST
26. STEP 1: GET AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE
27. GET AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE Stack Trace
28. GET AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE Stack Trace Version of Android
29. GET AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE Stack Trace Version of Android Device Make & Model
30. GET AS MUCH INFORMATION AS POSSIBLE Stack Trace Version of Android Device Make & Model Steps to Reproduce
31. STEP 2: SEE IF YOU CAN REPRODUCE IT
32. STEP 3: GOOGLE FOR KEYWORDS / SEARCH STACKOVERFLOW
33. STEP 4: RE-READ YOUR CODE
34. STEP 5: GATHER MORE INFORMATION
35. CRASHLYTICS logException
36. SERVER SIDE LOGGING
37. EVENT GRAPHING
38. GOOGLE ANALYTICS EVENTS
39. DEBUGGING INTERLUDE
40. KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER:
41. KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER: > Concurrency: Are your classes thread safe?
42. KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER: > Network Conditions
43. KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER: > Android has Bugs
44. KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER: > But Samsung is Buggier
45. KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER: > Check Your Assumptions
46. KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER: > Check Your Assumptions (aka) Your Backend Dev May Be Lying (Unintentionally)
47. PREVENTING BUGS
49. WRITE A CHECKLIST
50. WRITE A CHECKLIST > if the network is not available > if the server has an error > if it returns correctly > if something else goes horribly wrong > if the user is unauthenticated
51. BETA TEST
52. MAKE THE TESTS AUTOMATIC
53. RUN THE AUTOMATIC TESTS
54. WHAT IS A BUG??
55. A BUG IS A FUTURE YOU DID NOT CONSIDER
56. CURATED ANDROID FAILS @VOLUMEDOWNPOWER
57. SEND ME YOUR BUG STORIES. @NIFTYNEI