Upgrade to Pro — share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …

Debugging Zen (Lone Star PHP 2015)

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.

Ben Ramsey

April 18, 2015
Tweet

More Decks by Ben Ramsey

Other Decks in Programming

Transcript

  1. 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
  2. To search for and eliminate malfunctioning elements or errors in

    something, especially a computer program or machinery. debug /diːˈbʌɡ/
  3. Zen

  4. (colloquial) Extremely relaxed and collected. (informal) A philosophy of calm,

    reminiscent of that of the Buddhist denomination. zen /zɛn/
  5. “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a

    good blaster at your side, kid.” —Han Solo
  6. 1. Stop what you’re doing 2. Close your eyes 3.

    Take a deep breath 4. Let it out slowly
  7. “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…”
  8. “…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.”
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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;
  15. “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.”
  16. 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 $ [email protected] 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 %
  17. 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
  18. 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