Post #1656544
2026-04-24 15:13 UTC
My coworker and I figured out a nasty bug in our own code yesterday. It was one of those "works on my machine" situations. We ended up using some of the strategies from @b0rk 's zine, The Pocket Guide To Debugging, https://wizardzines.com/zines/debugging-guide/. We worked together, reproduced the bug, made a minimal example, identified and answered small questions, kept a log book, and analyzed the logs (a report from running the command). Eventually we solved it, and it was caused by a flawed assumption on our part.
Initially, the problem was daunting. It was involved with a tool, nuitka, that I'm not familiar with. It's a tool for compiling python applications into C and then makes a Windows exe file for running the application. It's somewhat niche, so I didn't find answers from web searches. I didn't know where to start, and things didn't make sense at all.
Having a set of strategies to fall back on was encouraging. It made the process a lot more fun too.
#debugging
Replies (4)
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@f800gecko@mastodon.online 2026-04-24 20:44
@davidruffner @b0rk Interesting. I've just been eyeballing Nuitka as a possible packaging option for some Python/C-add-on stuff of my own.
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@whophd@ioc.exchange 2026-04-24 23:10
@davidruffner @b0rk Chalk one up for the scientific method I don’t know why some people never try it and give up. I don’t just mean they try shortcuts first and then fall back to it; I mean they never go methodical when they need to.
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@PapyrusBrigade@cosocial.ca 2026-04-25 11:24
@davidruffner What a great book! I've just ordered the PDF.
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@vermicelli@mastodon.scot 2026-04-25 16:17
@davidruffner @b0rk Worth a try. If £9.05 is all it takes to guide me out of the weeds next time I'm really stuck on something (without pulling my hair out), it's probably worth it!