Best Practices for Debugging

Debugging is a daily activity of any programmer. Frequently, it is assumed that programmers can debug. However, programmers often have to deal with existing code that simply does not work. This tutorial attempts to change that by introducing concepts for debugging and corresponding programming techniques.

In this tutorial, participants will learn strategies for systematically debugging Python programs. We will work through a series of examples, each with a different kind of bug and with increasing difficulty. The training will be interactive, combining one-person and group activities, to improve your debugging skills in an entertaining way.

Contents:

• Syntax Error against Runtime exceptions
• Get file and directory names right
• Debugging with the scientific method
• Inspection of variables with print and introspection functions
• Using an interactive debugger
• Pros and cons of try.. except
• Delta debugging