Comments on: The Importance of Being Wrong (and in the Right Way) http://cafe.elharo.com/debugging/the-importance-of-being-wrong-and-in-the-right-way/ Longer than a blog; shorter than a book Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:31:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Gabe http://cafe.elharo.com/debugging/the-importance-of-being-wrong-and-in-the-right-way/#comment-17457 Gabe Fri, 22 Sep 2006 21:39:43 +0000 http://cafe.elharo.com/debugging/the-importance-of-being-wrong-and-in-the-right-way/#comment-17457 Debugging is generally a binary search proposition. The best programmer is the one who can most neatly divide the potential problem space in half. For particularly challenging problems, running a number of these tests builds up a collection of forensic information that can be interpretted. The trick is being able to interpret all those bits of information simultaneously. I don't know how many times the solution to a bug should have been obvious based on my combined testing, but I wasn't keeping all the evidence organized in my head. Debugging is generally a binary search proposition. The best programmer is the one who can most neatly divide the potential problem space in half.

For particularly challenging problems, running a number of these tests builds up a collection of forensic information that can be interpretted. The trick is being able to interpret all those bits of information simultaneously. I don’t know how many times the solution to a bug should have been obvious based on my combined testing, but I wasn’t keeping all the evidence organized in my head.

]]> By: John Cowan http://cafe.elharo.com/debugging/the-importance-of-being-wrong-and-in-the-right-way/#comment-17373 John Cowan Fri, 22 Sep 2006 13:49:48 +0000 http://cafe.elharo.com/debugging/the-importance-of-being-wrong-and-in-the-right-way/#comment-17373 "Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth to yourself." (a certain Pareto's reply to Kepler, quoted by Stephen Jay Gould in <i>Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes</i>) “Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth to yourself.”

(a certain Pareto’s reply to Kepler, quoted by Stephen Jay Gould in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes)

]]>