Debugging Zen (Lone Star PHP 2015)

Debugging is one of those skills that developers have the hardest time exercising and is also one of the most difficult to teach. It is both a scientific discipline and an art. It often requires you to reach beyond analytical thinking to rely upon your own intuition in order to solve a problem. In this talk, we’ll examine how intuition plays a crucial role in debugging software. You’ll leave with practical pointers on how to tap into intuition as part of your debugging habits and how to combine it with analytical processes to be a better developer.

Transcript

1. Debugging Zen Ben Ramsey
2. Not Zend!
3. HI, I’M BEN. I’m a web craftsman, author, and speaker. I build a platform for professional photographers at ShootProof. I enjoy APIs, open source software, organizing user groups, good beer, and spending time with my family. Nashville, TN is my home. virtPHP ✤ Books ✤ Zend PHP Certification Study Guide ✤ PHP 5 Unleashed ✤ Nashville PHP & Atlanta PHP ✤ array_column() ✤ rhumsaa/uuid library ✤ virtPHP ✤ PHP League OAuth 2.0 Client
5. Debugging Zen?
8. Debugging
9. To search for and eliminate malfunctioning elements or errors in something, especially a computer program or machinery. debug /diːˈbʌɡ/
10. Zen
11. (colloquial) Extremely relaxed and collected. (informal) A philosophy of calm, reminiscent of that of the Buddhist denomination. zen /zɛn/
12. Just What Is Intuition?
13. “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.” —Han Solo
14. Immediate cognition without the use of conscious rational processes. in·tu·i·tion /ˌint(y)o͞oˈiSHən/
17. That’s immediate cognition, and you weren’t conscious of any rational process being used.
19. Using your Intuition
20. Slow Down
21. 1. Stop what you’re doing 2. Close your eyes 3. Take a deep breath 4. Let it out slowly
22. “If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more…”
23. “…Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it.”
24. Stop Saying “I Don’t Know”
25. We shut off our intuition when we answer questions with, “I don’t know.”
26. Ask yourself what may be blocking you from finding the solution.
27. You must discover the answer.
28. The Problem Your Code Is in
30. 1. Looking in the wrong place.
31. 2. Wasting time, energy, and resources.
32. 3. Hurting your reputation as a problem solver.
33. First, assume the problem is in your code.
34. Focus on the Problem, Not aSolution
35. if (A && B) { // the problem must be C solveUsingD(); }
36. The symptoms may not indicate the real problem.
38. Always get to the heart of the problem.
39. Debugging the Irreproducible Problem
40. Do the symptoms point to a potential problem area?
41. Sometimes we can’t solve the problem.
42. Rubber Ducking
43. 1. Beg, borrow, steal, buy, fabricate or otherwise obtain a rubber duck (bathtub variety). From a message by Andrew Errington to the University of Canterbury Linux Users Group mailing list, 7 Nov 2002 http://lists.ethernal.org/oldarchives/cantlug-0211/msg00174.html
44. 2. Place rubber duck on desk and inform it you are just going to go over some code with it, if that’s all right. From a message by Andrew Errington to the University of Canterbury Linux Users Group mailing list, 7 Nov 2002 http://lists.ethernal.org/oldarchives/cantlug-0211/msg00174.html
45. 3. Explain to the duck what your code is supposed to do, and then go into detail and explain things line by line. From a message by Andrew Errington to the University of Canterbury Linux Users Group mailing list, 7 Nov 2002 http://lists.ethernal.org/oldarchives/cantlug-0211/msg00174.html
46. 4. At some point you will tell the duck what you are doing next and then realize that that is not in fact what you are actually doing. The duck will sit there serenely, happy in the knowledge that it has helped you on your way. From a message by Andrew Errington to the University of Canterbury Linux Users Group mailing list, 7 Nov 2002 http://lists.ethernal.org/oldarchives/cantlug-0211/msg00174.html
47. Talk through the problem out loud.
48. Sleep on It
49. Your unconscious kicks in while you sleep.
50. Develop With Purpose
51. Be intentional.
52. Grok what it is you are doing.
53. Feature for future release Tag 1.0 From this point on, “next release” means the release after 1.0 production: hotfix 0.2 Bugfixes from rel. branch may be Tag 0.2 Incorporate bugfix in develop Only bugfixes! Start of release branch for 1.0
56. 59089,74437,42530,62011,36174,116 95,99933,75496,69517,24908,95047, 89328,11274,47096,72374,49884,137 file_ids
57. 59089,74437,42530,62011,36174,116 95,99933,75496,69517,24908,95047, 89328,11274,47096,72374,49884,137 file_ids 137
58. CREATE TABLE `zip_bundle` ( `id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `user_id` int(11) NOT NULL, `cart_id` int(11) NOT NULL, `file_ids` varchar(100) NOT NULL DEFAULT '', PRIMARY KEY (`id`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
59. “The difference between science as it stands now and the Buddhist investigative tradition lies in the dominance of the third-person, objective method in science and the refinement and utilization of first-person, introspective methods in Buddhist contemplation. In my view, the combination of the first- person method with the third- person method offers the promise of a real advance in the scientific study of consciousness.”
60. THANK YOU. ANY QUESTIONS? benramsey.com Debugging Zen Copyright © 2015 Ben Ramsey This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 4.0 International. For uses not covered under this license, please contact the author. ! " @ramsey # github.com/ramsey $ ben@benramsey.com If you want to talk more, feel free to contact me. Ramsey, Ben. “Debugging Zen.” Lone Star PHP. Addison Conference Center, Addison, TX. 18 Apr. 2015. Conference presentation. This presentation was created using Keynote. The text is set in Adobe Minion Pro and Open Sans. The source code is set in Fira Sans Mono. The iconography is provided by Font Awesome. Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are used by permission under a Creative Commons license. Please refer to the Photo Credits slide for more information. joind.in/13563 %
61. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 PHOTO CREDITS 1. “Zen Stones / Piedras Zen” by Xisco Biblioni, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 2. “Zeev Suraski, Keynote” by S&S Media, CC BY-SA 2.0 3. “Andi Gutmans” by Stefan Koopmanschap, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 4. “Bug on a leaf, in all the glory of f/2.8” by Y.J. Chua, CC BY- ND 2.0 5. “Pagoda garden” by L Hoffheins, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 6. “My Brain on MRI” by Julie Falk, CC BY-NC 2.0 7. “Ripple Effect” by sea turtle, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 8. “Steve Jobs Keynote” by Ben Stanfield, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 9. “Zen” by Wulf Forrester-Barker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 10. “Annapurna Mountain” by Dave See, CC BY-NC 2.0 11. “Blue Flower in Barcelona” by Benjamin Grimmnitz, CC BY 2.0 12. “Latest DB Schema” by Stanford EdTech, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 13. “day 37” by James Gray-King, CC BY-NC 2.0 14. “Cheetah stalking” by flowcomm, CC BY 2.0 15. “The Dalai Lama @ Vancouver Peace Summit” by kris krüg, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 16. “Rubber ducks exposed /2” by Francesco Minciotti, CC BY- NC-ND 2.0 17. “Notes” by Brady Withers, CC BY 2.0 18. “Sleeping” by MeditationMusic.net, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
62. 19 20 21 PHOTO CREDITS 19. STAR WARS © 1977 Lucasfilm, Ltd. Used in accordance with Fair Use. 20. DUNE © 1984 Dino de Laurentiis Corporation. Used in accordance with Fair Use. 21. DUNE © 1984 Dino de Laurentiis Corporation. Used in accordance with Fair Use. 22. “Untitled” by DiamondBack Truck Covers, CC BY-SA 2.0 22