Computers are a marvelous invention, they make our life easier in many many ways. But it's not always smooth sailing, as sometimes something can go awry and the computer can break down. A computer can break down for two reasons: it can either be a hardware issue or a software issue. A hardware issue is often resolved by finding the misbehaving part and simply replacing it. Sometimes a failing component on a circuit can force you to change the whole circuit system, which is a drag, but most of the time resolving the issue is pretty straightforward. With a software issue however, often refereed to as a software bug, things can be a little more complex.
Software issues are resolved by doing what is called debugging. Debugging is an essential step of software development and is generally done by a programmer with the help of a debugging script or program. There are many flavors of debugging software. Such software put a program through its pace and look for vulnerabilities. A popular method of debugging is done with the help of a static code analysis tool. Such tools look for errors in the source code of the software. This comes in very handy to look quickly in the code for mistakes, doing this task manually could be close to impossible in some cases.
What should be first attempted is to try and recreate the issue if at all possible but this may not always be the case. Testing and iterations are very important in software debugging. Even a program that has crashed can be inspected by looking at the dump output. Sometimes it might be decided against resolving a non critical bug for fear resolving it might do more harm than good or for other reasons be it lack of time, resources, etc.
In any case, debugging tools are a programmer best friend. They can save a precious amount of time and help spot and resolve the issue that much more quickly.
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