On 1/27/2012 9:34 AM, David Mintz wrote:
Debugging has scarcely been mentioned in this thread. Perhaps the
proposed "Right Way" syllabus should include how to debug right along
with unit testing and version control, since these three are related
tools/skills.
There might be a sort of middle way where you introduce coding first,
and then as soon as the project becomes even moderately complex, get
into how to fix the bug you just introduced; how you might have
avoided it in the first place, with unit testing; and how you could
have rolled back, with version control.
As a perpetual wannabe (day job that is formally not IT-related, but
self-appointed self-taught coder and general-purpose geek for our
federal court interpreters' office), I have stumbled and fumbled and
learned the hard way for years. One thing I still haven't taken the
time to master is proper use of a debugger, so I still rely too
heavily on friends like echo and print_r(). I could use a good
tutorial or online course in that.
Agreed - and if you don't run Firebug and FirePHP you should install
them and learn how to use them. FirePHP is an easy to learn and very
powerful debugging tool. And it could use a good tutorial - the site
seems to be aimed at the experienced professional.
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