Is there any way to get faster at solving bugs? | Hacker News Reader

Is there any way to get faster at solving bugs?

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8 pointsjared3145 comments

There's some interesting discussion here at the previous (now dead) post of this article:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6308316

In particular, this comment about using the scientific method to diagnose bugs is valuable:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6308826

It's much more productive to formulate hypotheses and then gather evidence to prove/disprove them than to jump in with the debugger and start trying things at random. It's also worthwhile to spend some time trying to isolate the simplest possible reproduction of the bug.

There are actually books that have been written about how to debug in a systematic way (sorry, I don't remember the titles offhand).

> There's some interesting discussion here at the previous (now dead) post of this article

Looks like someone revived it.

The last update on his question is the most poignant. After seeking help online, and failing to improve to his manager's standards, he lost his job. But, he used his stackoverflow account and this question will now appear when someone searches for his username, and may count against him when applying for another job, for which he may be better suited.

I blame this on the manager as much as the developer.

A company I've worked for once had a developer quit very abruptly. He did so immaturely, but it happened because his manager was dissatisfied with his performance and instead of offering tips and advice early on when the problem was first observed the manager waited until about eight months had passed and unleashed incredibly harsh criticism on him, basically threatening to fire him without mercy if he didn't improve. The developer felt so bad and embarrassed that he couldn't stand to work there and he just quit without even giving two weeks' notice. I think he was completely caught off guard and went from feeling great in the job to feeling like complete shit.

He was allowed for eight months to believe he was doing well, then told that all that work was not appreciated and he'd be fired if he didn't more or less immediately do better.

Well, there's also "I've been here 2 years and it's obvious to everyone that I'm still struggling" and "I think I've become so demoralised and feel so marginalised that I've lost a lot of the fire..."

So this dev knows he's been struggling and he knows everyone around him knows it. There's no indication at all that this was a surprise to him or that the problems hadn't been mentioned earlier. It sounds to me that the manager gave him much more time than was really deserved to catch on, and he simply never did. We're both guessing a bit based on incomplete info, but it looks like the message didn't go from "you're doing great" to "you're doing horribly", but rather went from "you're struggling but we're willing to give you time" to "you know, time is almost up".

If after two years it's obvious to everyone that you're the weak link, then while training might help a little, you're probably just in the wrong place.

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