Debugging and diagnosis is not being taught
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As one of the senior developers where I work, I am tasked with mentoring the junior members of the team. This is a part of my role I really enjoy, as I get to pass down my hard won knowledge and experience to the next generation of software developers. What I have found over the years is that they all seem to lack one vital ingredient. How to debug / diagnose a problem. I have seen many of them struggle to use the debugger, set breakpoints, step through code, use the F12 browser tools etc. Even those with First Class honours degrees have struggled with this. I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates? I feel this is a vital skill in any software developer's tool chest.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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Debug by printing can be useful at times. That's the whole point of having log files. It shouldn't be the only tool in the box, but it shouldn't be completely discarded.
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As one of the senior developers where I work, I am tasked with mentoring the junior members of the team. This is a part of my role I really enjoy, as I get to pass down my hard won knowledge and experience to the next generation of software developers. What I have found over the years is that they all seem to lack one vital ingredient. How to debug / diagnose a problem. I have seen many of them struggle to use the debugger, set breakpoints, step through code, use the F12 browser tools etc. Even those with First Class honours degrees have struggled with this. I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates? I feel this is a vital skill in any software developer's tool chest.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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When I was at uni, you added punch cards to say
PRINT *, 'The value of I is ", i
Assuming you had enough runs left: Our score for an assignment decreased by 10% for each run over three. :sigh: When I moved into the "real world" and started working with embedded Z80 assembler, I had to write my own debugger to stop the process and display register / memory data in real time ... Visual Studio has so many tools to make beginners life easier, and many of them have no idea that they even exist, much less that "debugging" is different from "fixing the compilation errors". :sigh:
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640 Never throw anything away, Griff Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay... AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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As one of the senior developers where I work, I am tasked with mentoring the junior members of the team. This is a part of my role I really enjoy, as I get to pass down my hard won knowledge and experience to the next generation of software developers. What I have found over the years is that they all seem to lack one vital ingredient. How to debug / diagnose a problem. I have seen many of them struggle to use the debugger, set breakpoints, step through code, use the F12 browser tools etc. Even those with First Class honours degrees have struggled with this. I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates? I feel this is a vital skill in any software developer's tool chest.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
May I direct your attention to QA and the programming forums where you can easily evaluate for yourself if debugging skills are being taught or not. In my humble opine, the answer to that is "#$@% NO". Tell someone to use the debugger to see the values the code is using and they react like you've slapped them with a fish. They're not sure how to respond, either with being insulted or afraid of the debugger like it's some form of dark magic they're afraid to mess with.
Asking questions is a skill CodeProject Forum Guidelines Google: C# How to debug code Seriously, go read these articles.
Dave Kreskowiak -
As one of the senior developers where I work, I am tasked with mentoring the junior members of the team. This is a part of my role I really enjoy, as I get to pass down my hard won knowledge and experience to the next generation of software developers. What I have found over the years is that they all seem to lack one vital ingredient. How to debug / diagnose a problem. I have seen many of them struggle to use the debugger, set breakpoints, step through code, use the F12 browser tools etc. Even those with First Class honours degrees have struggled with this. I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates? I feel this is a vital skill in any software developer's tool chest.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
From my college experience around 20 years ago, debugging was not taught, or maybe it was skimmed over enough that I never learned. At that time it was VS6 and I remember being amazed when I learned about breakpoints and F8 at my first job! :-D As for problem solving, college was pretty weak there also. Assignments were mostly based on identical scenarios covered in the chapter...change a few variable names and get an A. There just wasn't much that required thinking outside the box. That said, I also remember having to get creative to debug classic asp and javascript. The IDEs, languages and browsers have made web development so much easier than it used to be 20 years ago at least in terms of being able to debug. My 2 cents. :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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raddevus wrote:
critical thinking skills simply aren't taught
You are wrong. I was taught to contradict everybody!
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
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As one of the senior developers where I work, I am tasked with mentoring the junior members of the team. This is a part of my role I really enjoy, as I get to pass down my hard won knowledge and experience to the next generation of software developers. What I have found over the years is that they all seem to lack one vital ingredient. How to debug / diagnose a problem. I have seen many of them struggle to use the debugger, set breakpoints, step through code, use the F12 browser tools etc. Even those with First Class honours degrees have struggled with this. I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates? I feel this is a vital skill in any software developer's tool chest.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
From my article - Being a Programmer[^] 8) If you're writing code using Visual Studio, learn how to use the built-in debugger. In fact, don't settle for being a "decent" debugger. Strive to be a GREAT debugger, because that's probably where you'll spend 75% of your coding time - tracking down and fixing issues cause by not only yourself, but by others as well. Exercise due caution while debugging someone else's code. Be diligent, and explore all possible side effects that might be caused by fixing an issue. If your shop is truly SDLC-compliant, the testers will regression test a new release candidate, but you should not count on the tests being able to capture every little nuance. (Unit tests are only as thorough as the person writing them.)
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013 -
harold aptroot wrote:
It's even worse than that: debug-by-printing is often explicitly recommended.
And why is that so bad? I have found a lot of bugs just adding a couple of messageboxes / wprintf in places of the code If you are programming things that might have a timing component, debugging alters the real world use case when you hit the stop points. Saving a couple of values there and printing them later on the screen doesn't screw your performance or timing relational so bad. And as de2k88 said... you might use it always. You can even "debug" the release version with it. I think this is like the "goto"... it is not bad per se. But I can agree with you that it might get messy pretty fast.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
We should use both. Sometimes printing (really logging) is essential (e.g., async and parallel programming). In fact, one of my bugbears at various client sites is the lack of logging features.
Kevin
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As one of the senior developers where I work, I am tasked with mentoring the junior members of the team. This is a part of my role I really enjoy, as I get to pass down my hard won knowledge and experience to the next generation of software developers. What I have found over the years is that they all seem to lack one vital ingredient. How to debug / diagnose a problem. I have seen many of them struggle to use the debugger, set breakpoints, step through code, use the F12 browser tools etc. Even those with First Class honours degrees have struggled with this. I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates? I feel this is a vital skill in any software developer's tool chest.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
If graduates were taught how to use the VS2017 debugger, 6 months from now someone would complain why they weren't taught how to use the VS2019 debugger. Well, this is a bad example because typically the debugger doesn't change all that drastically from one version to the next, but you understand where I'm headed with that. They should learn about the debugging process, rather than the specific of any given tool. Indirectly related: When no debugger is available (eg, software is running on a customer's system and nobody has access to it)...do said developers have access to a great logging library, and *know what to log and when*? The importance of this particular aspect cannot be stressed enough. Knowing how to use a debugger won't get anyone very far if you can't reproduce a problem locally and can't install any debugging tool--and a log file is all you have at your disposal.
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Debug by printing can be useful at times. That's the whole point of having log files. It shouldn't be the only tool in the box, but it shouldn't be completely discarded.
If you are building code to ship to customers, then in the field problem diagnosis is a fundamentally important thing. If something only fails in the field and you can't reproduce it, it can turn into a major circle-jerk (with you being the jerk in the circle.) Good logging, with variable threshold, is a key part of that. And, since it's already there, it will serve you just as well during development as well. For me, I have a very powerful logging system that is supported throughout the entire code base, and the ability to log to a centralized log server. This has saved me more times than I can count. I mean, we all love being jerked in a circle, but sometimes you just don't have time for it.
Explorans limites defectum
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If graduates were taught how to use the VS2017 debugger, 6 months from now someone would complain why they weren't taught how to use the VS2019 debugger. Well, this is a bad example because typically the debugger doesn't change all that drastically from one version to the next, but you understand where I'm headed with that. They should learn about the debugging process, rather than the specific of any given tool. Indirectly related: When no debugger is available (eg, software is running on a customer's system and nobody has access to it)...do said developers have access to a great logging library, and *know what to log and when*? The importance of this particular aspect cannot be stressed enough. Knowing how to use a debugger won't get anyone very far if you can't reproduce a problem locally and can't install any debugging tool--and a log file is all you have at your disposal.
I agree, and that's why I suggested that understanding concepts such as setting breakpoints and stepping through code are vital skills (without making any mention of any particular IDE). I have't found a recent graduate yet who seemed to understand these skills. Even whilst writing vanilla code, you will still need to understand these skills when your own code fails to give the expected results. And they are definitely needed when fixing bugs and maintaining code. In answer to your other questions, we use tools such as Azure Application Insights which does an incredible job of logging diagnostic information to enable us to debug production errors.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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As one of the senior developers where I work, I am tasked with mentoring the junior members of the team. This is a part of my role I really enjoy, as I get to pass down my hard won knowledge and experience to the next generation of software developers. What I have found over the years is that they all seem to lack one vital ingredient. How to debug / diagnose a problem. I have seen many of them struggle to use the debugger, set breakpoints, step through code, use the F12 browser tools etc. Even those with First Class honours degrees have struggled with this. I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates? I feel this is a vital skill in any software developer's tool chest.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
Dominic Burford wrote:
I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates?
Schools will provide nothing beyond what they promise in the curriculum, the rest is left for the student to research in their free time. Which hardly anyone does, ofc. Hard to find a decent school that's worth what it is asking.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^] "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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As one of the senior developers where I work, I am tasked with mentoring the junior members of the team. This is a part of my role I really enjoy, as I get to pass down my hard won knowledge and experience to the next generation of software developers. What I have found over the years is that they all seem to lack one vital ingredient. How to debug / diagnose a problem. I have seen many of them struggle to use the debugger, set breakpoints, step through code, use the F12 browser tools etc. Even those with First Class honours degrees have struggled with this. I remember when doing my own degree (many years ago) we were taught these basic skills (using a Borland C++ IDE). Is this vital skill no longer being taught to new graduates? I feel this is a vital skill in any software developer's tool chest.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
Remins me of a few years when I was working with a couple of EE engieers, 50% self-taught in programming, and I had to help them out debugging a lot of software. I impressed them a lot, pinpointing problems quite rapidly, and the they frequently asked me, like, - How did you know how to set the breakpoint exactly there? - I don't know... Well, it turned out well, didn't it? - What made you look at that variable, just when it went crazy? - Good as any, but when it changed, it put us on the track, didn't it? I couldn't explain even to myself what were good breakpoint position, values to trace or whatever. It is just an instinct. You can't expect everybody to have that instinct. Nowadays I have nobody looking over my shoulder, getting impressed. But if I did, I would have a hard time explaining my hows and whys of debugging. I didn't really learn it from anyone, it just came by experience. It came early to me, most of it during my studies. Maybe today's development environments do not give you the same kind of learning experiences as those we had when we submitted code batches on punched cards to the computer center. In my case, that ended after my freshman year, but even with interactive terminals, we retained this idea of the program residing down in our semi-unconciousness. as a breeding ground for whatever instinctive ideas about how to debug the programs. I don't think today's students "internalize" the programs nearly as much as we did when I was that age.
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I agree, and that's why I suggested that understanding concepts such as setting breakpoints and stepping through code are vital skills (without making any mention of any particular IDE). I have't found a recent graduate yet who seemed to understand these skills. Even whilst writing vanilla code, you will still need to understand these skills when your own code fails to give the expected results. And they are definitely needed when fixing bugs and maintaining code. In answer to your other questions, we use tools such as Azure Application Insights which does an incredible job of logging diagnostic information to enable us to debug production errors.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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Diagnosing and debugging are most certainly skills, and skills that seem to be in short supply amongst recent graduates. Certainly amongst the graduates I've been mentoring over the last few years.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
