In Learning From Your Bugs, I wrote about how I have been keeping track of the most interesting bugs I have come across. I recently reviewed all 194 entries (going back 13 years), to see what lessons I have learned from them. Here are the most important lessons, split into the categories of coding, testing and debugging:
Bugs are great learning opportunities. So how do we make sure we learn as much as possible from the bugs we fix? A method I have used for more than 13 years now is to write down a short description of the bug, the fix, and the lessons I learned.
Way back in 2002, I came across a blog post by Bill Wake that described this method. I have used it ever since, and I believe it has helped me become a better software developer.
Every time I fix a particularly tricky or interesting bug, I take a few minutes to write down some facts about it. Here is an example of a typical entry: Continue reading
Posted in Debugging, Learning, Programming, Testing
I finally got around to reading Clean Code by Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob). It is often high on lists of the best books for software development, and for good reason. Clean Code is an excellent book that all programmers should read. Here is what I liked and didn’t like about it. Continue reading
I love coding. Ever since I bought my first computer (a VIC-20), I’ve been fascinated by computer programming. For many years I never thought of why I enjoyed it so much – I just knew I did.
But that changed when I read The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks. Most people associate that book with Brooks’s law: adding people to a late project makes it later. But for me, that is not the best part of the book. The best part is one page at the end of chapter one, entitled The Joys of the Craft.
There, Fred Brooks quite eloquently put into words what I love about coding. Continue reading
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