[sf-perl] Getting Help (was Re: Debugging a CGI script - how)
Jared Rhine
jared at wordzoo.com
Sat Mar 8 12:37:10 PST 2008
> Does anybody have a reference on how to write a good bug report/shout
> out for help?
I've no bug-reporting guides that aren't application-specific. It
seems that the crankiness experienced on this list and others boils
down to these two rules:
1. Cut-and-paste the actual error message, not your summary of the
error message
2. Include actual code
Time and time again, inquires which include at least one of these
pieces of information get an answer. Inquiries which skip both are
barely worth responding to, except to repeat the above two rules.
For Perl-list questions, Raymond's document should be shortened
dramatically by basing around these two. (He was trying to construct
a general method of question-asking, which is inherently harder than
any procedure for a specific context, like an app or Perl coding.)
("generic-type error" is the funniest problem report I've seen in a
while, FWIW. Probably what's going on here is the original poster is
seeing a 500 error in Apache, which is indeed a generic-type error
with no script-relevant info. They haven't learned yet to look in the
error logs.)
For what it's worth, I can see how beginners are so unstructured in
their thinking as to attribute a sort of magical ability to more
experienced people, to the point where their mental model is that
senior developers know what the problem is from just a hand-wavey
description of the problem. It's half that people don't know how to
Ask Good Questions, but also that they don't understand the process
experienced people use to solve problems. They can't distinguish
between problems which have one or two possible answers and problems
which have 1000 possible answers.
When I train junior staff, it's amazing how the most effective lesson
I can teach is generally "read the actual error message". "No, read
it". "Repeat each word to me". "It's telling you the exact
problem". "Rephrase the error message to me". Of course, experienced
people know error messages often lie or are useless, but errors
received by junior staff usually aren't obscure but very plain.
-- Jared
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