Debugging and Code Review: The Software Engineer's Daily Ritual

As a software engineer, one of the most common tasks you'll encounter is debugging someone else's code. This is a crucial part of the development lifecycle, ensuring that the software functions as intended and meets the requirements of its users. In this article, we'll delve into the details of this daily ritual, exploring various scenarios and practical solutions.

Scenario 1: Unusual Missing Functionality

Not too long ago, people at our dev environment were reporting a missing functionality. As I was not the one who made any recent changes, my initial step was to verify the issue. After confirming the missing functionality, the next step was to get the service running on my laptop to step through the code.

Upon using the debugger, I found an unexpected issue where a database query wasn't returning the expected results. Further investigation revealed that a colleague had marked a significant number of rows as deleted, more than intended. After marking them undeleted, the functionality worked as intended.

Scenario 2: Determining Constraint Safety

Not too long ago, I had to examine and walk through a colleague’s code. The task was to determine the possible values that could be assigned to a newly added database column. The goal was to ensure that adding a not-null constraint to that column would not have any unintended consequences.

This process involved a thorough review of the code and understanding the logic behind the column's usage. It's a standard practice, especially when the original developer is busy or has left the company.

Standard Practice in the Workplace

The act of debugging and reviewing someone else's code is a standard practice in many software development teams. Whether it's fixing a bug or ensuring the safety of constraints, this practice is crucial for maintainability and reliability.

Scenarios like these happen frequently. I personally don’t have a specific example to recall from a recent time, but similar situations arise almost daily. For instance, yesterday before lunch, I had to understand the inner workings of pip due to weird error messages. When I encountered an issue with a personal access token in the URI, it turned out to be an ACL problem in the environment.

Conclusion

Debugging and code review are indispensable parts of a software engineer’s job. They ensure that the codebase remains robust and maintainable. By understanding how to approach these tasks, software engineers can significantly enhance the quality of the code they work with, ensuring that the projects they contribute to meet the highest standards.

Let's continue striving to improve our debugging and code review processes, making our codebases not only functional but also secure and reliable.