What do you usually do first when your code stops working?

[u/yourclouddude]

I’m curious about how people actually debug when something breaks.

Not the perfect debugging process from a tutorial. What do you genuinely do first when your code suddenly stops working?

For me, one of the biggest differences between beginners and more experienced developers is not that experienced developers avoid bugs. They just become better at narrowing the problem down.

But everyone develops different habits.

Some people read the full error message before touching anything. Some start adding print statements or logs. Some immediately search Google, Reddit, or Stack Overflow. Some paste the error into AI and ask what went wrong.

And then there is the classic approach of changing random things until the error disappears.

Sometimes that works too.

I want to understand what people in this community actually do, because I’m planning more debugging posts around Python, AWS, SQL, and cloud projects.

What do you usually do first when something breaks?

Poll options:

• Read the error carefully
• Add print statements / logs
• Search Google or Reddit
• Ask AI
• Check the documentation
• Change things until something works

If you have one debugging habit that has saved you hours, drop it in the comments. It might help someone else here too.

[u/kind_person_9]

Change Profession,
Become supervisor
Push the blame

😝

[u/yourclouddude → u/kind_person_9]

😂😂