The Debugging Delusion

Last Tuesday, 3:47 AM: There I was, on my third cup of coffee, staring at my screen with bloodshot eyes. "This stupid API is broken," I muttered, firing off angry messages to the library's GitHub issues. Four hours of debugging later, I found the problem. I had typed userData.firstname instead of userData.firstName.

Camelcase: 1, My sanity: 0

Sound familiar? We all have been there - convinced that our code is perfect while rest of tech stack is conspiring against us.

Debugging is a journey. A psychological rollercoaster filled with denial, anger, bargaining and the eventual acceptance of yes, it was my code all along. So today, let’s take a deep dive into the delusions of debugging !

"It Works on My Machine" – A Lifestyle Choice

This phrase is our favorite defense mechanism. “It Works on My Machine” is the programming equivalent of telling someone "you must be holding it wrong" when their phone doesn't work.

Developers have an unshakable belief that if something runs locally, it should run everywhere. And yet, the real world disagrees often times.

The Five Stages of Debugging Grief

Every bug leads us through an emotional journey (specially when you can’t find answer on Stack Overflow or ChatGPT)

1. Denial

• “The bug must be in Node.js itself”

• “No way, this has been working for months”

• “The user is clearly doing it wrong”

2. Anger

• “Who wrote this garbage?! Oh… it was me.”

• "WHY IS THIS FRAMEWORK SO BROKEN?"

• “Why can’t they have extra parameter to support this feature”

3. Bargaining

• “Maybe if I clear my cache one more time...”

• “Let me just try an older version of the library”

• “Maybe if I roll back to an old commit, it’ll fix itself.”

4. Depression

• “I have no idea what’s happening. Maybe I should switch careers.”

• “What if I couldn’t solve this stubborn bug”

• Stares blankly at your VS Code screen

5. Acceptance

• “Oh... I forgot to add ENV Variable”

• “Ah, I was testing in the wrong environment”

• “Damn, I was referring wrong variable…that explains”

• “Yes, it was my code all along”

The Mystical Art of Turning it Off and On Again

Every developer has been there. You’ve been debugging for hours, trying to trace the issue… and someone suggests: “Did you try restarting?” (I literally said it this week, guess what, it actually worked 🥲)

It sounds ridiculous, but it works (often times). And here’s why:

• Clears memory leaks – Maybe your app is hoarding intensive resources.

• Resets state – That "random" bug? Probably caused by leftover cache.

• Reinitializes dependencies – If you’re debugging a microservices setup, sometimes services just get tired.

• Load Keys second time – If your CI/CD pipeline needs SSH Keys and first time it generated those, but couldn’t load to make the connection.

But wait,

Why Debugging is just Reverse-Engineering your own Mistakes

If coding is an art, debugging is detective work. But here’s the real kicker: 90% of debugging is figuring out what past-you was thinking.

• That variable named temp123? No idea what it does.

• That weird workaround? You wrote it, but you’re still confused.

• That TODO comment: "Fix later"? Later is now.

This is why good code isn't just about logic → it’s about making future-you’s life easier. And in all honesty, it’s fun to find out how dumb past-you was & fix that. Embrace that.

The Path to Redemption: Learning from our Delusions

Here's the thing: Every single developer has spent hours debugging an external dependency only to find they misspelled a variable name. It's part of the journey. The key is learning to laugh about it and growing from these experiences.

Always check your assumptions first

• Yes, even that variable you're "sure" has the right value

• Especially that thing that "couldn't possibly" be the problem

• Check you’ve added that library in your requirements.txt file

Set up proper logging

• Future you will thank past you

• Past you probably didn't log enough

• Simple Print statements also works

Create reproducible environments

• You can’t say "Works on my machine" to an exploded production run

• Test your Env before you test app

• Docker is your friend (most of the time)

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Remember, the next time you find yourself absolutely certain it's not your code – it probably is. And that's okay. The real growth comes not from being right all the time, but from being willing to be wrong and learn from it.

Now, go forth and debug responsibly. And if all attempts fails… try restarting. 😉

Until next time, Cheers

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P.S. This newsletter was tested on the author's machine and worked perfectly fine. Any issues accessing it are clearly due to environmental differences, not Author’s Fault, He’s a great Developer, don’t doubt him.. xD

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Thanks for reading,
Kelvin
TechParadox.dev