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Re:Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software de... by donkeyd on Wednesday October 03, 2018 @10:47AM (#18130705)
Definitely this. Reading logs is a skill.

It's pretty much the same for debugging. I notice the juniors often start to look at where the problem may be. I usually try to first look where it isn't, so I can drill down to where it actually it, in stead of just looking at code and hoping to find what's wrong.

Re:Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software de... by duncanhill on Wednesday October 03, 2018 @11:36AM (#18131250)
Totally concur, that's very similar to the method I explain to folks when they ask how I go about debugging.

I've always visualized it in my head kind of like a binary search tree, or maybe the bisection method in math for finding roots. I want to think about as little code as possible, so I take steps to cut the problem space down as dramatically and quickly as possible.

Plus, the less I have to think about when debugging the less likely I am to end up with an actual headache.