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• Julia Evan’s Debugging Zine
• Rubber Duck Debugging
  • A form of debugging where you articule and explain the problem to an inanimate object
    • Can also be a person, but the point is to explain the problem rather than it is for them to ‘understand’
    • If you do use a person, be sure to inform them of the purpose, and be nice to them (don’t exhaust them)
  • Trying to simplify the problem can often generate new perspectives
  • The anxiety of trying to condense the complex situation can force many into evaluating their issues comprehensively
• Write a comprehensive report before asking for help
  • Effectively the same as Rubber Duck Debugging
  • More often than not, a comprehensive report will make you explore the problem more, allowing you to figure it out
  • If not, it will help others help you faster, lowering the time it takes to solve the problem
  • Version, OS, Environment, Logs, Steps to reproduce, Expected behavior, Actual behavior, etc.
    • This may seem like a lot, but an in-depth exploration is a good test of your understanding of the problem
    • It has worked for me dozens of times, even if frustrating
• Simplify the problem as much as possible
  • If it’s an error occurring on a specific line, strip away everything else until you’re left with just the things that directly interact or keep it happening
  • Even if it doesn’t reveal the problem, it can help you understand the core components and narrow down the problem
• Turn it off and on again
  • While time consuming, a re-install, reboot, cache clear or reset can fix the problem
  • Attempt from multiple computers, including one that has never seen it before
    • Include this detail in your report if you post online
• Questions to ask yourself
• Don’t ask to ask, just ask
• You’re not the only one - search often
  • Become skilled at googling, researching and reading documentation
• StackOverflow has a high skill floor and has become quite elitist
  • If you’re posting on there, 50/50 chance you won’t get an answer or will be downvoted/closed
  • If you’re posting something they can answer, it’s probably been answered before, multiple times
  • If you’re posting something ‘new’, it’s probably not a question they can answer
    • Funny enough, you’ll still get downvoted/closed
• Try to look for communities around the technology
• Don’t directly email or message someone unless you’re extremely confident they’re the only one who can help
  • e.g. they produced the software and don’t have any public forums
  • e.g. they created a discussion on the same bug but did not post the solution publicly