Systematic Debugging

Overview

Guessing at fixes wastes time and creates new bugs. Quick patches mask root causes. The only reliable path to a fixed bug is systematic investigation.

Core principle: Find the root cause before attempting any fix. Symptom fixes are not fixes.

systematic-debugging  (you are here)
  -> reproduce and localize
  -> bug-root-cause-tracing       (if cause is unclear or deep in a call chain)
  -> fix at source
  -> high-level-testing-strategy  (if best proof is unclear)
  -> test-driven-development      (for automated regression proof)
  -> manual-testing               (for runtime/manual proof)
  -> bug-protection-multi-layered (for recurring or high-risk bug classes)
  -> verification-before-completion