Introduce more systematic debugging methods: Delta Debugging (an automated method that simplifies test cases, from Why Programs Fail Chapter 5) and Statistical Debugging.
Materials: Debugging book, fuzzing book, David J. Agans' Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules, G. Aaron Wilkin's Debugging From Art to Science (Rose-Hulman, course documents open on GitHub).
Discussion questions (the rest are from previous semesters, for reference):
How does students using LLMs to complete assignments affect code debugging? What new LLM-related debugging techniques emerge? (e.g. first have the LLM explain the code to the student)
Where did we learn debugging ourselves? Distributed/parallel systems are hard to reproduce and involve randomness; graphics mostly print-debugging; hardware debugging mainly by waveform (advanced: compare with an ISA simulator); minimize code / minimal working example to reproduce; some taught themselves gdb as TAs.
Why do students struggle with debugging? Needs practice rather than theory; some don't like writing code and lack motivation. One TA said "I did this topic last year; this year I added a vscode-debugging doc and a section in the PA doc."
Teaching debugging via assignments/docs: Stanford CS107e LAB3, Tsinghua networking debugging docs, computer-organization error quick-check list, and the data-structures "debugging tutorial" (first half of the semester, weekly 20-30 min: debugging overview, code style, test-case construction — because offline tutoring couldn't overcome unreadable code, unfamiliar tools, and a lack of confidence).
Some quotes (Dijkstra, Kernighan on debugging; "Teacher JYY, the green mentor forgives you") and Debugging From Art to Science's listed learning objectives and how to achieve them (describe how defects arise, classify bugs by reproducibility/determinism, read and understand large projects, use the scientific method to search for bugs, efficiently use debugging tools, use cause-and-effect rules to fix and prove the fix, design techniques/patterns to simplify future debugging; plus a bug logbook).