DEV Community

Filips Masolovs for Visual Composer

Posted on

2 1

Debugging a problem

"If debugging is the process of removing software bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in."

  • Edsger Dijkstra

I like this quote! Whenever I am asked something like: "How did this bug appear?" my first response would usually be: "Someone just put it there..."
And then we can check!?

However, being in this whole new world for less then a year debugging is currently the hardest part for me! Sometimes you open the console and the error is blunt and obvious like "Cannot read property 'smth...' of undefined" most of the times this type of issue will be pretty easy. Obviously there can be times when you struggle to realize why on earth the object or whatever is undefined, but still, probably this is workable!
Then there are hard errors like object doesn’t support property, Uncaught RangeError, ...is not a function and such! These usually take much more time for me to debug and I definitely need to learn to use debugger in such cases more properly, but about this more in the future!

But then there is hell. And by hell I mean when all the code is loaded, there are no errors in the console, you see what you want to see in the DOM, but... but the functionality isn't working! This is extremely tedious when you know for sure that it was working before.
And this is the type of "bug" that frustrates me the most for now!
When I encounter bugs I usually at the least know where to check, but in cases like this, it is from a to z... So what to do? Dig?

What are your stories with debugging and bugs in general?
Care to share?

P.S. I would like to write an article about my thoughts on design docs next! Would you be interested in reading it?

Hostinger image

Get n8n VPS hosting 3x cheaper than a cloud solution

Get fast, easy, secure n8n VPS hosting from $4.99/mo at Hostinger. Automate any workflow using a pre-installed n8n application and no-code customization.

Start now

Top comments (0)

AWS Security LIVE!

Join us for AWS Security LIVE!

Discover the future of cloud security. Tune in live for trends, tips, and solutions from AWS and AWS Partners.

Learn More