"The best part of debugging isn’t fixing the bug — it’s understanding why it existed."
🔍 Introduction
When I started learning to code, debugging felt like punishment. It was frustrating, time-consuming, and often unpredictable. But as I progressed in real-world projects — from building APIs in FastAPI to analyzing GitHub repos for technical debt — I realized that debugging is where real thinking happens.
It’s not just about removing errors. Debugging forces you to slow down, observe, question assumptions, and think in systems. It made me a better developer — but more importantly, it made me a sharper thinker.
💡 Lesson 1: Bugs Teach You to Question Everything
I once spent hours trying to figure out why my FastAPI route was returning a 422 Unprocessable Entity. The fix was a single missing field in the request body — but the lesson was deeper.
That bug taught me to stop assuming “the code looks fine” and start breaking problems into smaller pieces, isolating conditions, and verifying data at every step.
Debugging trained me to ask better questions:
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“What do I know for sure?”
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“What has changed recently?”
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“Is the issue in logic, data, or environment?”
🧱 Lesson 2: Debugging Builds System-Level Thinking
While working on my Technical Debt Analyzer, I faced a bug where my subprocess wouldn’t capture stderr properly while running Pylint. Fixing it wasn’t just about syntax — I had to understand how child processes work, how stdout/stderr are piped, and how FastAPI handles async calls.
That moment made me realize:
"Every bug is an entry point into deeper system understanding."
Now, I approach systems not just as code, but as layers — environment, libraries, OS, and more. And I debug with a map in mind, not just trial and error.
🛠️ Lesson 3: Tools Don’t Replace Thinking
Yes, I use tools — print(), logging, VS Code debuggers, pdb, Postman, and even pytest with verbose logs.
But no matter how good the tool, it’s your mental model that matters. Tools help you see — but your mind still needs to connect the dots.
In one case, I had an intermittent bug that only showed up after the app ran for 10+ minutes. No tool could instantly tell me the issue. It took observing patterns, understanding state, and tracing edge cases to get to the root.
🧘♂️ Lesson 4: Debugging Builds Patience and Precision
Debugging trains a muscle that’s crucial in software — resilience. Sometimes, bugs hide in plain sight. Sometimes, they lie to you. But the process of narrowing down, testing hypotheses, and finally finding the root cause… it’s deeply satisfying.
Debugging taught me to slow down, breathe, and think like a detective.
It made me more detail-oriented and mentally calm — two traits that have helped me beyond programming, even in planning, documentation, and working with teams.
🔁 Final Reflection
I used to treat debugging as something to “get through.” Now, I see it as part of the craft.
It’s where code meets curiosity.
It’s where developers learn to think like engineers.
It’s where real problem-solving begins.
So if you’re reading this and feeling stuck in a loop of print statements and broken endpoints — know that you're not just fixing bugs.
You’re training your mind to build better software — and becoming a better thinker in the process.
🔗 Want to see where this thinking led me?
Here are a few of my real-world projects where debugging played a key role:
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✅ Smart Todo App (Django + Supabase + AI) – (Coming Soon)
Thanks for reading!
Feel free to connect or drop your own debugging story — I’d love to hear it.
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