The Magic and Science of Debugging (RubyConf 2021)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: it was debugging time. Debugging is an inevitable reality of writing software; every developer has had a piece of code behave unexpectedly at some point or another.

But debugging can feel like magic: Where do you start looking for the bug, and how do you know where to find it?

In this talk, we'll learn what makes debugging hard, and the cognitive process behind it. We'll also explore using the scientific method as a debugging process model in order to help us get better at finding the bugs in our own Ruby programs. Let's become better debuggers together!

Transcript

1. @vaidehijoshi
   The Science + Magic
   of Debugging
   

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2. hello
   

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3. it’s been a minute
   

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4. i’m vaidehi!
   

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7. joy of learning
   

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8. debugging
   

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9. magical
   

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10. how do I know
    what I know?
    

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11. what are we doing
    when we debug?
    

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12. debugging
    

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13. problem solving
    

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14. 50%
    

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15. an inherent part
    

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16. debugging is hard
    

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17. — Brian Kernighan
    “Everyone knows that debugging is
    twice as hard as writing a program
    in the first place. So if you’re as
    clever as you can be when you write
    it, how will you ever debug it?”
    

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18. context
    

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19. “combinatorial
    complexity”
    

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20. mental model
    

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21. approximations
    

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22. what’s happening
    in our brains?
    

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25. the steps the
    programmer took
    

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26. bloom’s
    taxonomy
    

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35. higher
    order thinking
    

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40. bloom’s taxonomy
    is how we learn
    

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41. we climb bloom’s
    taxonomy while
    debugging
    

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42. when we’re
    debugging,
    we’re learning
    

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43. how do we gather
    our knowledge?
    

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46. End yes
    no
    

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56. scientific method
    

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59. scientific method
    bloom’s taxonomy
    +
    

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60. bloom’s
    taxonomy
    

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61. to be good debuggers,
    we need to be good at
    gathering knowledge
    

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62. scientific method
    

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63. to be good debuggers,
    we must always check
    our assumptions
    

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64. approximations
    

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65. assumptions
    

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66. what are we doing
    when we debug?
    

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68. learning
    

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69. learning
    applying
    

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70. iterative
    learning
    applying
    

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71. everyone can
    do it
    

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73. make debugging
    more accessible
    

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74. debugging is
    not magic!
    

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75. we can all be
    great debuggers
    

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76. thank you!🪄💛
    @vaidehijoshi
    

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