According to techopedia, Debugging is the routine process of locating and removing computer program bugs, errors or abnormalities, which is methodically handled by software programmers via debugging tools. One of the things I have struggled greatly with since I began my coding journey is debugging my code. I’ve realized that on the journey to becoming an excellent developer, it is essential to learn not only how to write clean code but how to debug as well. I’d like to share my personal tips on how to debug code.

Visual Studio Code should be your friend.

Trust me, this is not a sponsored post or anything but so far, in my journey, Visual Studio Code has helped in debugging most of my javascript code. Whenever I run into errors, the first thing I usually do is to check the ‘problems’ section. it is located alongside the output, terminal and debug console options in the IDE. This usually helps with detecting syntax errors which might include omissions or mistakes in JavaScript syntax.

You should love Google Chrome ‘inspect’ option.

Another disclaimer, this is not a sponsored article. Lol. However, the inspect option has helped a lot with debugging my code as a beginner. All that is needed is to right-click anywhere on your page and select the “inspect” option. This opens a mini-tab on the left side of the page where you can access a wide variety of developer tools alongside a console that shows the errors on the page and links them back to the source code.

Relax!

There is a high tendency to get worried and frustrated while trying to debug your code. You definitely have to “calm down”. It is necessary to calm your nerves by talking to a friend/loved one, seeing a movie or my personal favourite, “sleep”. This has worked for me a couple of times and I believe that it would for you too.

In conclusion, in my journey so far, I have learnt that it is almost impossible to not have errors in your code. Hence, it is important to learn to debug code in the fastest time possible. I’d like you to share other ways/tools that have helped you as well in the comments section below. Ciao!