Bad Programming Practices 101: Become a Better Coder by Learning How (Not) to Program

© Karl Beecher 2018

Karl BeecherBad Programming Practices 101https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3411-2_11

11. Debugging

Karl Beecher¹ 

(1)

Berlin, Germany

 

Objectives

In this chapter, you’ll learn:

• How to carry out debugging as an incompetently led investigation, specifically by:

  • Making wild guesses

  • Favoring your own pet theories

  • Refusing to be methodical

• How to frustrate debugging by writing code that leaves no clues behind

• How to avoid carrying out proper fixes on faulty code

Prerequisites

Before reading this chapter, make sure you’re familiar with debuggers and their basic facilities, like stepping through code and inspecting variables.

Introduction

You can’t win them all. Not every bug you create will escape the attention of your conscientious colleagues. ...