Dear Jacquie
I am Java/J2EE developer from past 7 years. I worked on different kinds of java applications and j2ee/soa based enterprise applications and technologies like XML, SOA, WEB SERVICES, INTEGRATION PRODUCTS LIKE BPEL, ESB, WEB APPLICATIONS ETC.
Lot of times in our career we have to work on Maintenance Projects (aka brownfield development) since there are very few Development Projects (aka
greenfield development) opportunties we get. So we need to have good debugging skills and a good temperament to understand the code that already exists.
My experience at least is that I have given just source code and was asked to deliver the solution or fix bugs/code-issues etc. without being given any code documentation, application documentation
, requirements documentation, design documentation etc. and in these scenarios understanding the code can be challenging and daunting task as 80% of your project time you may be running the debugger for understanding the requirements and problem at hand. This approach is not acceptable but we have do not have choices most of the times. So a devloper who has good temperament in reading/debugging the code all day long can have good career in projects or companies. And I am not good at debugging the code which is the area I would like to improve upon.
I request you to give some suggestions on how to improve our debugging skills based on your vast industry experience. For debugging skills, I understand that it depends on individual
skills, his grasping skills, analytical skills etc. however I would like to know how to improve on them ? and any debugging tips from you ?
may be we can run eclipse debugger and understand but would like to hear from you the smart ways of understanding code written by others ? how to debug smartly code written by others ?
any tools, techniques, tips, hacks, strategies etc. we can use that increase our productivity in debugging code ? how to smartly debug web applications etc. ? etc.
Thank you in advance for your time on my thread.
- Akram