If I had a penny for every time a developer copy-pasted an error into Google or Stack Overflow without reading it, I'd be running a global datacenter by now. And don't get me started with this new LLM race, blindly following what the LLM asks you to do.
An error pops up… and instead of reading it, your fingers are already firing up Chrome. Paste. Search. Click random Stack Overflow answers. Try. Fail. Try again. Maybe drop it into ChatGPT, hoping magic happens.
And somehow, this feels like debugging.
Let's be clear, this is not debugging.
It's reaction. It's panic. It's a habit. And it's wasting your time, your growth, and your ability to actually solve problems.
Trial-and-Error Culture
We've all been there. Stuck. Frustrated. The deadline is creeping up, tasks are getting reprioritized and all you want is for the damn thing to work. So what do you do?
- Paste the error into Google.
- Click the first few links. Hope that someone have faced the same error as you.
- Try the top-voted fix.
- Didn't work? Try the next.
- Still doesn't? Ask ChatGPT. Copy. Paste. Pray.
Most of the times it works. But you didn't learn why. You don't know what caused it. You don't know what actually fixed it. You just know that something made the red squiggly go away.
This is the trial-and-error trap, a culture of coding that looks like progress but isn't.
In a world flooded with AI tools, blogs (written by AI), answer farms (made by AI), and auto-complete (AI again), we've unknowingly trained ourselves to skip the one thing that truly matters:
Thinking
The irony? Most errors already tell you what's wrong. Stack traces, logs, line number, they're practically handing you the answer. But we've built this twitchy, compulsive loop around skipping them.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with searching for help. If you're digging into the why, exploring different angles, and making informed, calculated decisions, you're doing it right.
But that's not what most developers are doing.
The problem starts when you blindly apply every fix you find online, hoping something sticks.
What This Is Doing to You
You're Losing Knowledge
Every time you skip understanding an error, you miss a chance to sharpen your mental model of how things work.
- You don't understand why the issue happened.
- You can't explain what fixed it, or worse, if it's really fixed.
- You become dependent on external tools to solve basic problems.
You're not building experience. You're just building a stack of accidental successes. If you can't explain the root cause, you haven't actually debugged anything.
All this adds up, and before you know it, you are single-handedly destroying the project.
You're Wasting Time
Being on this loop may feel fast, but it's not.
You might find a fix in 5 minutes today. But because you didn't understand it, you'll spend 2 hours on a similar bug next week. And next month. And during production.
- Chasing unrelated solutions because you didn't analyze the actual error.
- Applying fixes that seem to work but introduce silent bugs.
- Wasting time debugging the same class of problems repeatedly.
The trial-and-error habit doesn't just slow you down in the moment, but it quietly chips away at your growth and efficiency over time. This is brainrot for developers.
Think about it. You're in an interview, and the recruiter hits you with the classic:
"Tell me about a challenging task you faced and how you solved it."
Now what do you say?
"Yeah, I bravely copy-pasted 10 random solutions from Stack Overflow until one of them kind of worked… I think."
That's not a story. That's a montage of confusion.
You didn't struggle with the problem — you struggled with the copy-paste buffer. And when they ask you to explain what the actual issue was or why your 'fix' worked?
Crickets. 🦗🦗🦗🦗
The LLM Trap
Look, I love LLMs as much as any developer. It's fast, helpful, and honestly kind of magical. But here's the uncomfortable truth: If you don't know what you're asking, LLMs won't save you.
They'll respond with 500 words of confident-sounding nonsense, sprinkled with just enough keywords to feel legit. But without your context or understanding, it's just noise dressed as code.
LLMs are powerful tools, but they can't read your mind. They don't know your architecture, your business idea, or your weird edge-cases. And if your first move is to dump errors into an LLM hoping for divine intervention, you're just automating the same bad habit.
And no, it doesn't matter if the response sounds smart. LLMs are trained to be fluent, not necessarily correct.
How to Actually Debug
1. Read the Error
Modern tech is built around developer experience. Most of the times the error clearly states what went wrong and languages like Rust even suggest you possible fixes.
You just have to read it, understand the trace and make a calculated decisions.
2. Reproduce it
Can you reliably trigger the error? What changed recently? Does this happen only with specific data or tenant? Does the environment play a role in this behavior?
Asking these questions will itself lead you to figuring out 80% of the problem.
3. Form a Hypothesis
Take an educated guess on what could be wrong and test it
"I think this fails because X happens before Y."
"What if this object is null because of Z?"
Now you have something to test. Something to validate or eliminate.
4. Search with Precision
Now, go to Google, but with clarity. If you want to use an LLM, don't just paste the error. Add context:
- What you're trying to do.
- What language/framework you're using.
- What you've already tried.
You'll get better answers and be more likely to understand them.
5. Reflect Once it's Fixed
The moment you get it working, don't just sprint to the next task.
Stop. Ask:
- What actually went wrong?
- Why did this fix work?
- Could it happen again?
- Should I document it or write a test?
This is where real growth happens, not when you fix it, but when you understand it.
Debugging isn't about memorizing solutions. It's about training your brain to think like a system.
And the sooner you get out of the trial-and-error cycle, the sooner you start writing code like someone who actually owns it.
Let's be clear, there's nothing wrong with using Google, Stack Overflow, or LLMs.
In fact, it'd be silly not to. These tools exist to help us move faster, solve problems, and learn from each other.
But the line between help and habit is thin.
The real issue isn't the tool — it's skipping the thinking part.
If you're not taking the time to understand the problem, you're not growing. You're just duct-taping your way through it.
So use the tools. Copy that snippet. Ask that LLM.
But do it after you've read the error, asked questions, formed a theory, and tried thinking it through.
Stay Curious. Adios 👋
Top comments (0)