meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

How to Get Better at Debugging

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Wes Bos

Tech News, Technology, News

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2018

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Scott and Wes detail the tips and tools you need to get better at debugging. Freshbooks - Sponsor Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at freshbooks.com/syntax and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Coffeecup’s CSS Grid Builder Tool Check out Coffeecup’s CSS Grid.cc builder tool and resources to learn, prototype and build next gen layouts with CSS Grid! Show Notes 4:00 Read the stack trace 7:35 Make sure you aren’t debugging production Make sure you’re not cached 8:40 Check the network panel for the whole response CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) 12:04 Use debugger commands in the browser Set breakpoints (race conditions 13:40 Use Source Maps 15:29 Make full use of all console methods console.group/groupEnd/info/ console.log({objNAme}) 17:02 View your code in other browers Make sure your browser is up to date 18:50 Step into and step over function Useful for especially tricky issues 19:47 Look into Scope in dev tools panel 20:33 Recreate it in CodePen or Create React App Helps to quarantine your code Verify where the problem actually is 24:12 Take a break Helps clear your head and approach your problem from a different angle 25:40 Rubber Duck Debugging Forcing yourself to talk it out will often reveal problems/issues 26:40 Check Github issues / ask in Slack Leave your solution in the comments for others 28:12 Use Node --inspect flag 29:57 Read the code in your libs (if you can) 32:34 - Chrome Dev Tools Tabs Rundown 33:10 - Network tab 34:15 - Preformance tab 35:58 - Lesser known tools 36:15 - Firefox Grid Debug 36:20 - Firefox Fonts tab 37:10 - More tools (three dots menu in top right of Chrome Dev Tools window) 37:39 - Chrome Animations Inspector 38:34 - /dev tips & Modern DevTools Course 39:41 - Chrome & FF Layers for 3d and full view of canvas & window 40:51 - Sensors for overriding fake devices sensors Hot tip: Use Instagram on the desktop - Go to Instagram and set the user agent to iPad and it will work as it does on that actual device Hot tip: Get free internet on a plane - If the airplane offers free internet for a certain device, change your user agent to that device and then switch back 43:12 - Favorite DevTools extensions Apollo React Redux Vue Lighthouse JSON Formatter 44:06 - Application/Storage tab 44:41 - FireFox Grid Inspector ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Hotel Tonight App Wes: Coffee table - If you’re trying to build an outdoor coffee table, use a peice of granite Shameless Plugs Scott’s Level 2 React Course coming out THIS WEEK! - subscribe and be notified when it’s released Wes’ Courses - Advanced React course coming soon - subscribe to be notified when it’s released Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You're listening to Syntax, the podcast with the tastiest web development treats out there.

0:06.0

Strap yourself in and get ready.

0:08.0

Here is Scott Tolinsky and West Boss.

0:10.5

Hello everybody and welcome to Syntax the podcast with the tastiest web development treats.

0:15.6

Today we are talking about debugging.

0:17.8

Here are some we're going to go through like first we're going to go through some tips.

0:21.2

How do you get good at debugging? How do you tackle a problem

0:24.3

that seems impossible to fix and go through these steps to actually figure out what it is? And

0:28.9

then we'll go through some of the tools that we actually use to make debugging and development easy.

0:33.6

Today's episode is sponsored by two awesome companies.

0:36.3

First one is Fresh Books.

0:37.8

They provide awesome Cloud accounting software.

0:40.2

And the second is Coffee Cup software,

0:42.2

but more specifically, they just launched a CSS-crit design tool.

0:47.2

And we'll talk a little bit more about that part way through the episode.

0:50.9

It's actually pretty sweet. I know that you think immediately

0:53.7

you think about a design tool you think back to like a dream lever or something like that

0:58.6

and that's what I did too but I actually checked it out and the codeoda puts out is pretty pretty sweet so we'll talk

1:06.3

part way through them part way through the episode. How you doing today Scott?

1:11.1

Hey I'm doing good I just came back from a long trip. I went to Romania for a conference, and I am exhausted.

1:19.3

Definitely taking a little while to recover here. But everyone will be happy to know there is a terrible part two

1:26.2

to my health adventures, which is actually sort of related

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wes Bos, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wes Bos and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.