Debugging: When Trouble Happen

Preventive care

You can avoid a lot of issues preventively:

Git

• Do small branches/updates
• Integrate very regularly
• Use GitHub to merge (the merge editor is quite good)

Coding

• Always start from a working software situation
  • If the code is not working, fixing it need to go before adding anything
• Work by small increments

The good news and the bad news

• The machine only does what we ask it to do
• If the software is not working the way you intended, it means you were "wrong" in the instruction you gave it
• Logic can help to solve pretty much everything (despite how weird it may look at the time, it will make sense in the end)

Git issues

Conflict? Two (or more) people did modify the same lines of the same files - git will ask what to do with the result

Front End issues

• Is something visible on the screen? Or the screen does not show at all
• Try to discriminate
  • Are we on the good page (routing)?
  • Any error visible ?

Reading error messages