Commentary
Reading the Play: What Sports Taught Me About Debugging
The best debuggers, like the best point guards, see the whole court before the ball moves. Here's how I apply game-sense to gnarly bugs.
June 18, 2026 #debugging#mindset#engineering
Great point guards don’t react to where the ball is — they read where it’s going. Debugging is the same discipline. Before touching a line of code, I map the whole court.
Slow down to speed up
The instinct under pressure is to start swapping lines like a striker shooting from anywhere. Instead, reproduce the bug reliably first. A bug you can’t reproduce is a bug you can’t defend against.
Narrow the field
- Bisect the change history —
git bisectis your video review room. - Add logging at the boundaries, not the middle.
- Question your assumptions about the “obvious” cause.
Make the assist
Once you find it, write the test that would have caught it. That’s the assist that helps the next teammate — and future-you — score.
The fix is temporary. The test is the trophy.