From the Exorcist to Hercule Poirot
summary
A 20‑step, practical debugging workflow that claims developers spend about 51% of time debugging and shows how to reproduce, hypothesise, experiment and binary‑search faults until they’re isolated. Uses concrete tools: git bisect for time dichotomy, tcpdump/wireshark and strace for network and OS faults, Jaeger or Zipkin for distributed tracing; favors short deterministic repros and automated tests. Gives examples: refactoring a boolean antipattern to eliminate recurring errors, adding an internal debug table that proved useful, and publishes the checklist at debug.guide.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Introduction to debugging
- 1:50Stay calm before debugging
- 2:54Reproduce the bug reliably
- 4:40Analyze error messages
- 6:05Prepare for debugging session
- 7:29Map your system architecture
- 9:18Formulate and test hypotheses
- 11:42Use dichotomy to narrow down
- 13:07Read technology documentation
- 14:52Use the right debugging tools
- 16:16Ask for help from your team
- 17:19Validate your fix properly
- 19:05Improve debugging tools
- 20:27Prevent future bugs
- 21:30Refactor messy code
- 24:38Train your team
- 26:04Celebrate debugging victories
- 27:26Q&A: Horror debugging stories
