The help desk is a breakout room on the north side of the COMSC 120 lab. Throughout the day there are lab operators in COMSC 120 that can provide limited help, but during the hours posted. The COMSC 120 lab is open 24/7.
Additional Debugging Advice
When coding, there is a lot of debugging. We suggest the following to help / try before asking coding questions. Please note that if you have general / insight question, these don't apply. However, trying these debugging techniques before asking coding questions will help you become a better programmer.
- Design before you code
- the best developers build a plan before coding. They figure out what they want to do, either by writing it in comments or using paper. It makes a major difference.
- Talk through your code / algorithm (see ducky below)
- Write code in small segments (one or two lines at a time)
- Make sure it compiles
- Toss in a print() to make sure it is doing what you think
- This may mean adding extra variables
- Have a bug, use print liberally to figure out what is going on
- This may mean commenting out sections of your code, and slowly stepping through it
- we suggest using "TESTING" or "DEBUG" in whatever you print. That way, you don't accidentally leave a print in there when you submit for grading.
Before asking questions, talk to the ducky!
ften the best thing you can do is explain what you are attempting to do to a friend. In the process of explaining it, you usually figure out your errors, and it helps give you a direction to go from there.
Sometimes in companies, this can be a time-cost for other developers so thus the introduction of a Rubber Duck for testing. This gives you an object for you to talk to just like you would a friend. The object doesn't have to give feedback (just like a friend doesn't), but instead, the process of talking through the code out loud will often provide insights into both development and errors.