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Testing vs. debugging

 
Greenhorn
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I'm sorry to ask this, but could someone please explain the difference between testing and debugging? I'm really new to programming in general and would like to understand.

Thank You.
 
author and iconoclast
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Testing is trying to find problems you don't know about. Debugging is figuring out what's causing a problem you do know about. The more testing you do, paradoxically, the less debugging you need to do, because the more you test, the better your understanding of the software is. The better you understand it, the fewer bugs you'll insert.
 
Alicia Sumpter
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Ernest Friedman-Hill, thank you, that makes sense. I also followed a link I found... somewhere in here... and am trying to understand it. My Java knowledge is self-taught (lots of books) so I believe I'll be spending plenty of time in the Beginners area. Thank you for answering my question.
 
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There's also a more subtle division of the term "debugging" itself. Debugging can mean either general problem solving where you try to find out the source for unwanted behaviour in your application, or it can mean the specific act of running a debugger -- a piece of software that executes your program statement by statement, letting you observe the values of each and every variable at each step.
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