Presentation: Building a Debugging Mindset

Duration

Duration: 
5:25pm - 6:15pm

Level:

Persona:

Abstract

Almost by nature, bugs force us to operate beyond our knowledge and understanding. Even experienced developers show wide variance in capability when it comes to debugging software. What is it about debugging that is so inherently difficult? What makes some more successful at solving bugs? Importantly, what can we even do about it?

A large body of psychological research pioneered by Carol Dweck may hold the key: our perceptions about our own abilities influence our goals and behaviors. Beginning with a simple shift in thinking, we can improve our own abilities and help enable others to do the same.

Speaker: Devon H O'Dell

Tech Lead @Fastly

Devon H. O'Dell is a recovering competitive Guitar Hero and Rock Band addict, but still occasionally enjoys rhythm games and jamming on guitar and drums. Today, he is a tech lead at Fastly, where he's primarily focused on getting folks un-stuck. Prior to Fastly, Devon was Lead Software Architect at Message Systems, and contributed heavily to the Momentum high-performance messaging platform. His experience over the past 15 years ranges from web applications to embedded systems firmware (and most areas in-between). His primary technical interests are developing and debugging low-latency concurrent network systems software and related tools.

Find Devon H O'Dell at

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Conference for Professional Software Developers