- Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Hopper, the inventor of COBOL, is credited with observing the first computer bug—literally, a moth caught in a relay in an early computer system. When asked to explain why the machine wasn’t behaving as intended, a technician reported that there was “a bug in the system,” and dutifully taped it—wings and all—into the log book.
- Debugging is a sensitive, emotional subject for many developers. Instead of attacking it as a puzzle to be solved, you may encounter denial, finger pointing, lame excuses, or just plain apathy.
- It doesn’t really matter whether the bug is your fault or someone else’s. It is still your problem.
Don't Panic
You need to turn off many of the defenses you use each day to protect your ego, tune out any project pressures you may be under, and get yourself comfortable. Above all, remember the first rule of debugging: Don’t Panic.
- When trying to solve any problem, you need to gather all the relevant data. You first need to be accurate in your observations.
- Once you think you know what is going on, it’s time to find out what the program thinks is going on.
Tip
If you “changed only one thing’’ and the system stopped working, that one thing was likely to be responsible, directly or indirectly, no matter how farfetched it seems.