Techniques and Tools for Ef f icient Troubleshooting DEBUGGING PHP APPLICATIONS AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

THE FIRST STEP OF DEBUGGING IS TO KNOW THAT A PROBLEM EXISTS. THE FINAL STEP IS FIXING IT. EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN IS PROBLEM-SOLVING. 

The Hidden Cost of Software Development TIME SPENT ON DEBUGGING ACM The New Stack Coralogix VentureBeat 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 20% 75% 22% 42.5% ACM: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3068754 The New Stack: https://thenewstack.io/how-much-time-do-developers-spend-actually-writing-code/#:~:text=Breaking the data down by,14 Coralogix: https://coralogix.com/blog/this-is-what-your-developers-are-doing-75-of-the-time-and-this-is-the-cost-you-pay/#:~:text=4) 75,identifying & fi xing product defects VentureBeat: https://venturebeat.com/dev/developers-spend-20-of-their-time- fi xing-problems-and-its-killing-your-company/#:~:text=Developers spend 20,when it comes to 

The Hidden Cost of Software Development FINANCIAL IMPACT OF DEBUGGING Debugging Cost in the US Annual Cost (in billions) $113 Coralogix: https://coralogix.com/blog/this-is-what-your-developers-are-doing-75-of-the-time-and-this-is-the-cost-you-pay/#:~:text=4) 75,identifying & fi xing product defects 

AARON HOLBROOK Over 20 years of development experience Public Speaker & Workshop Leader Driven by E ff iciency & Problem-Solving A Lifelong Builder: Digital & Physical AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM Your Debugging Expert for the Day Principal Engineer at Zeek: Specializing in Solving Problems 

A Strategic Guide to Mastering PHP Troubleshooting Debugging Fundamentals Analyzing Symptoms Asking the Right Questions Forming Hypotheses Finding the Root Cause Git Bisect The xDebug Deep Dive Practical Tips THE DEBUGGERS TOOLKIT AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

DEBUGGING FUNDAMENTALS The Science Behind the Process 

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD A Tried and True Framework for Systematic Inquiry Observation Question Hypothesis Experimentation Analysis Conclusion AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

SYMPTOM ANALYSIS The Hidden Language of Bugs: Understanding Symptoms 

WHY ANALYZING SYMPTOMS IS CRUCIAL 

SYMPTOM ANALYSIS Symptom Identi f ication: recognize what the symptoms are. Error message, unexpected output, performance bottleneck, etc Symptom Classi f ication: critical, major, minor, etc Correlation vs Causation: don't jump to conclusions. Two events occurring together doesn't mean one caused the other. Establish a causal link Logs and Metrics: Use logs and metrics to quantify symptoms. Numerical data can provide insights Monitoring Tools: Monitoring tools can alert you to issues before they become critical as well as give you an overview of frequency AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

FROM SYMPTOMS TO QUESTIONS 

THE RIGHT QUESTIONS The Next Step to Debugging Success 

WHY QUESTIONS MATTER 

TYPES OF QUESTIONS Diagnostic: When does this error occur? Causal: What changed recently? Exploratory: Could this issue be related to another feature? AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

PRIORITIZING QUESTIONS 

EXPERIMENTATION Strategies for Pinpointing Issues 

STRUCTURED INVESTIGATION TECHNIQUES Logical Segmentation: Break complex problems into smaller pieces. Focus on individual modules or functionalities Binary Search Debugging: Divide the problem space into two halves and determine which half the issue lies in. Iteratively repeat the process and narrow down the problematic code section e ff iciently. Controlled Experiments: Create controlled environments to test your hypotheses. Separate testing database or extracting out potentially problematic modules, controlling variables lets you perform more simple and accurate tests. AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

STRUCTURED INVESTIGATION TECHNIQUES Comparative Analysis: Compare the problematic system with a version that is working correctly. What di ff erences can you identify? Historical Data and Version Control: Utilize logs, past versions and change logs to understand what has changed. Issues are often introduced with new updates, historical data can provide valuable context. Documentation and Reporting: As you investigate, document your steps, f indings and rationale behind decisions. This is useful for team collaboration AND for postmortem analysis and for client communication. AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

GIT BISECT Time-Traveling for Debuggers: Finding the Moment Things Broke 

GIT BISECT A Git command-line tool for isolating the commit that introduced a bug. AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM What Is It 

GIT BISECT AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM How It Works The Algorithm: Uses binary search to quickly identify problematic commits Good vs Bad Commits: Mark a known good commit and a known bad commit to start the search 

GIT BISECT AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM Practical Application Why It's a Game-Changer: Saves time and increases accuracy in debugging PHP projects. Quick Walkthrough: A brief example of using git bisect in a PHP codebase 

WALKTHROUGH 

THE XDEBUG DEEP DIVE Advanced Debugging Powers 

MASTERING XDEBUG Breakpoints Variable Inspection Evaluating Expressions Call Stack / Stack Trace Watches Your Ultimate Debugging Companion AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

WALKTHROUGH 

TIPS & TRICKS Debugging’s Best-Kept Secrets: Revealed 

Reproducibility is Key Divide and Conquer Observe and Note Everything Learn Keyboard Shortcuts Keep the Code Base Clean Know When to Step Away Add Tracing When Stuck Think Outside the Box 

CLOSING INSIGHTS The Debugging Chronicles: Final Chapter 

CONCLUSION Debugging Fundamentals Analyzing Symptoms Asking the Right Questions Forming Hypotheses Finding the Root Cause Git Bisect xDebug Practical Tips Key Takeaways AARON HOLBROOK, 2023 ZEEK.COM 

Q&A 

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