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Debugging with the Scientific Method - Stuart Halloway

ClojureTV · talk · Watch on YouTube

Testing, debugging & developer toolsFunctional programming

What it is

Stuart Halloway of Cognitect argues for debugging with the scientific method: form hypotheses, try to falsify them, and write everything down. The talk is given to the Clojure community but applies to any language.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as a talk that changed how people debug, worth rewatching periodically.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2015, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “changed how I debug problems. I try to watch it once every year or two.”

    Debugging by forming and falsifying hypotheses while writing everything down

    seanc, 2022-09 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: How do you get better at debugging/finding a solution?”

  2. “This talk is a good backstory as to why the errors are so bad, and useful no matter what language you use”

    Backstory on why Clojure errors are bad, useful in any language

    chrislloyd, 2015-12 · Recommendation · in “Metabase: Why we picked Clojure”

  3. “Stuart Halloway from the Clojure community has some great a talks using the REPL to debug.”

    Halloway talk on using the REPL to debug

    grierson, 2018-09 · Recommendation · in “REPL + Debugger = REPLugger: a pleasant and scalable live code editor”

  4. “Stu Halloway (also a member of the Clojure core team) has a couple of great talks on using the scientific method in programming”

    Halloway talks on applying the scientific method in programming

    simon_acca, 2023-05 · Recommendation · in “Rich Hickey: Design in Practice”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: debugging, scientific method, clojure, hypothesis testing, stuart halloway

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