Dirty Jobs: Debugging - The Missing Episode

I was very disappointed when the Discovery Channel cancelled "Dirty Jobs" without dedicating an episode to "Debugging", a job many consider far more disgusting than that of the "Geoduck Harvester or the "Turkey Inseminator". For the unfamiliar, the show features Mike Rowe performing difficult and stomach-turning occupational duties of some of the messiest jobs in America. I have yet to meet a software engineer who jumps out his or her chair in excitement at the thought of fixing one of his or her bugs let alone other people's. It can be one frustrating of a task, and sometimes "twice as hard as writing a program in the first place" in the words of Brian Kernighan who needs no introduction. In this session, you will be exposed to a more systematic and rigorous approach to debugging, and will be introduced to a number of techniques and methods inspired by modern studies in cognitive psychology, the philosophy of science, and other fields. A survey of the available tooling will also be conducted. Come to the session to join the coalition forces on the war on bugs. You never know, you might end up changing your mind about your favorite part of being a software engineer after all.