Question

I’ve been doing quite a bit of debugging of managed applications lately using both Visual Studio and WinDbg, and as such I’m often ask to assist colleagues in debugging situations. On several occasions I have found people aho just insert break points here and there and hope for the best. In my experience that is rarely a useful technique.

My approach goes something like this.

• Reproduce the problem. Ideally reduce the input as much as possible.

• Examine what goes wrong and list theories for where the bug may be.

• Examine one theory at a time by debugging that specific area of the code.

Repeat steps as necessary.

For complex debugging problems I often work with a colleague. For WinDbg this is especially useful.

Any other useful tips or best practices for debugging?

Answer 1

One very best practice is not diving into debugger immediately but look at the code and think hard for some time.