Debug It!

Reproduce First, Ask Questions Later

Why is reproducing the problem so important? Because if you can’t, then it’s almost impossible to make progress. Specifically:

• The empirical process relies upon our ability to watch the software executing in the presence of the bug. If we can’t get the software to misbehave in the first place, then this, the most powerful weapon in our armory, is lost.

• Even if you do somehow manage to come up with a theory about why the software might be misbehaving, how are you going to prove it if you can’t reproduce the problem?

• If you think that you’ve implemented a fix, how are you going to demonstrate that it really does fix the problem?

Not only is it critical to reproduce the problem, but it’s critical that ...