Informix DBA Survival Guide, Second Edition

Define the Problem

Assuming that you have determined the need for a debugging effort, it's important to approach the effort with a plan rather than with a hit-or-miss, haphazard approach. This chapter will lay out a methodology that you can apply to any type of debugging or troubleshooting effort.

Following a plan or method is often viewed as taking too long or being too involved by software professionals. Most often, they'd rather just jump in and fix the problem rather than take the time to go through a lot of useless steps. Sometimes this is actually the case in simple, straightforward problems. The problem is that it is not always possible to identify the simple cases. Problems that appear simple may in fact be quite complicated, and problems ...