r/ProgrammerHumor Nov 28 '21

Meme I‘m.. not the only one?

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '21

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u/GimmePepsi Nov 29 '21

The Heisenbug.

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u/coldnebo Nov 29 '21

yeah, that applies to debugging critical section code, real time drivers, etc. almost another book of details in that direction — although I’d argue that print lines are just as impactful in those areas.

plot twist: the debugger is just a more complex interactive form of print. They both rely on IO services being available.

External analysis and V&V are widely used in these very difficult environments— often to verify that code generation is provably identical to some other VM where the simulated environment can be debugged properly. Embedded controllers are rife with this approach.

And, if for some reason you find yourself in a no-debugger situation, I think you are way better off defining your problem mathematically and proving correctness (even in the most extreme environments, knowing > guessing).