Software Engineering Goals: Improving Debugging

So we are on to the second half of my software engineering goals.

This half should be easier to write up. This half is more technical. The contents are easier to get and they are shorter and there is less and fewer examples. But they are still really important goals nonetheless. And there is more to them than may seem to catch the eye at first, as I have learned by going over them over the last week or so!

So the first goal is really around being better at debugging in the codebase and in the database.

Debugging 

This is a very specific goal. It is something that a seasoned more experience software engineer would know inside out. Sadly, it just hasn't come up for me very much and this is why I need to learn how to do it so much more in the context of work and where I'm working at now; my IDE, my app, my new language and framework and so on. 

Basically I just want to get better at going inside of codebases and databases and just digging around and finding what is wrong with things and finding problems.

This goal is really just about the day to day of debugging an app. 

Debugging - In More Detail

So let's say I added in a feature to our app and it's not working.

So first of all I need to be able to say to myself "what am I doing wrong here." And so it's just like:

• Running through the debugger in Python
• And just trying to figure out what the function's doing and why it's not running.

Debugging - Part 2

There could also be an issue that is more around the database and things not saving and not storing to the database (for example - there are countless other issues it could be as well). 

This would involve looking more at the interactions between Django and the database then.

The main expectation is for me to be able to do this really well locally.

But in prod then the kinds of things I would be doing would be pretty similar too.

And not debugging deep infrastructure issues... thanks.

Debugging - Personal Goals

Two personal goals or ideas I have related to this are

1. I would really like to learn to use the debugger better
2. I would really like to complete my module on my Intermediate Python 3 course on unit testing and exceptions as I really hope that this could help me with debugging as well. I have no doubt that learning all of these things would really help me to get some extra practice.

On this first one I am reaching out to my network - I have a lot of people.

I have my manager, I have my mentor (who recently did a debugging session for the associates at work anyway so I'm sure we could do a version of that), I have a mentor who helps me from a neurodivergent perspective and I have my lead engineer who I can ask questions too. 

There is also the wider company and people who specifically use my IDE. I want to gage the best way to do this. But either way I want to learn to do this. I never learned to do this properly in my last job and if I had known what a wonderful tool it was I would have scrambled to learn it much sooner. But for some reason it didn't come up very much.

Of course, I wish that it had...

Today was the beginning of the rest of my life

I focused so hard today and I used my focus time. I still slipped up once, but I got some clear feedback on it and it really helped me.

The main thing is that there is always something directly related to my tickets that I can be doing. 

And that is the main thing - and the most important thing of all please - thank you.

On two counts

TODAY WAS THE BIGGEST ABSOLUTE MIRACLE AND WONDERFUL DAY OF MY LIFE.

I FINALLY WROTE UP MY TICKET'S STEPS IN A WAY THAT MADE SENSE TO ME.

LIKE THIS I HAVE A LIST OF INSTRUCTIONS TO FOLLOW THAT I CAN FOLLOW THROUGH IN THE PROCESS AND REFER BACK TO WHEN I GET LOST. I AM SO SO SO SO HAPPY OMG.

I AM SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO FRICKING HAPPY