Dec 2025
Debugging Loops that Teach
1 min read • Teaching
Tutoring 180+ students taught me that debugging is a teachable skill. Here's a simple framework I use:
## The Debugging Loop
1. **Reproduce**: Can you make it fail consistently?
2. **Isolate**: What's the smallest input that causes the issue?
3. **Hypothesize**: What could cause this behavior?
4. **Test**: Add print statements or breakpoints
5. **Fix**: Make the smallest change that solves it
6. **Verify**: Test with the original input
## Common Patterns
- **Off-by-one errors**: Check loop bounds
- **Null pointer exceptions**: Trace object initialization
- **Logic errors**: Step through with sample data
This systematic approach helped students improve their project quality by 25% and increased test coverage by 20%.