I enjoyed the talk - it identified things that I find I already do that help add the "intuition" level to debugging. Now I understand what I'm "intuitively" doing and can maybe help others understand these techniques
I would note that the abstract should probably point out this is not a hard technical talk but more of a "how your brain works" talk, I was expecting a little bit more on the technical side of debugging.
I also would LOVE to see a bit on some ideas for how to TEACH this stuff to beginning developers - exercises or how to slow down the C levels freakouts when things go wrong :)
There was some great advice and suggestions in here. It would have been great to at least conclude with a slide or two of specific debugging techniques and tools that are available. The presentation was clear and had some good stories that drove points home. I enjoyed this.
This was an interesting talk, but not what I was expecting, was hoping for some good tips and tricks on debugging. Taking things slow and channeling inner zen is definitely worth a discussion, good references and life examples though.
First the negative: I was disappointed that this talk was not technical in nature. Xdebug, PHP, and I are terrible companions; though I hope to change this relationship in the next few months. I had hoped that this talk would provide some technical zen to help me get over my xdebug trepidation. Yet, this was a soft-skills talk.
For the positives, this was a great talk to remind one to not panic when things go wrong. One should remove oneself from the situation, emotionally, and try to figure out what is actually going on. I enjoyed the real-life example and tried to logic my way through the introduced problem as Ben talked about various strategies. My debugging Zen only succeeded when he showed a funny-looking database record near the end of the talk.
I hope that I am better equipped to approach the various problems I will experience on-the-job with as much zen acumen as Ben reminded us to provide in this talk.
Comments
Comments are closed.
Good advice, would have liked to see some actual debugging techniques, probably would have gone to another session.
Really thoughtful talk. Obviously a seasoned speaker.
I enjoyed the talk - it identified things that I find I already do that help add the "intuition" level to debugging. Now I understand what I'm "intuitively" doing and can maybe help others understand these techniques
I would note that the abstract should probably point out this is not a hard technical talk but more of a "how your brain works" talk, I was expecting a little bit more on the technical side of debugging.
I also would LOVE to see a bit on some ideas for how to TEACH this stuff to beginning developers - exercises or how to slow down the C levels freakouts when things go wrong :)
There was some great advice and suggestions in here. It would have been great to at least conclude with a slide or two of specific debugging techniques and tools that are available. The presentation was clear and had some good stories that drove points home. I enjoyed this.
what i learned: when there's a problem, don't freak out and jump to conclusions. take a deep breath and focus on the problem, not solution.
what i thought i was going to learn: techniques and ways of thinking that are out of the norm.
i agree with liz's comment. re-reading the talk description makes sense now, but putting in bold print "not a technical talk" would help re's like me
This was an interesting talk, but not what I was expecting, was hoping for some good tips and tricks on debugging. Taking things slow and channeling inner zen is definitely worth a discussion, good references and life examples though.
First the negative: I was disappointed that this talk was not technical in nature. Xdebug, PHP, and I are terrible companions; though I hope to change this relationship in the next few months. I had hoped that this talk would provide some technical zen to help me get over my xdebug trepidation. Yet, this was a soft-skills talk.
For the positives, this was a great talk to remind one to not panic when things go wrong. One should remove oneself from the situation, emotionally, and try to figure out what is actually going on. I enjoyed the real-life example and tried to logic my way through the introduced problem as Ben talked about various strategies. My debugging Zen only succeeded when he showed a funny-looking database record near the end of the talk.
I hope that I am better equipped to approach the various problems I will experience on-the-job with as much zen acumen as Ben reminded us to provide in this talk.