Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:21:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Art S. Kagel" <kagel AT ns1 DOT bloomberg DOT com>
To: Josh Eckstein <kwe1 AT flash DOT net>
Cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Check out my demo game!
In-Reply-To: <199708092247.RAA29366@endeavor.flash.net>
Message-Id: <Pine.D-G.3.91.970811121532.3813F-100000@dg1>
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On Sat, 9 Aug 1997, Josh Eckstein wrote:

> 
> Where are the other laws of programming?

Kagel's Law of Debugging:

The bugs are in the data.  The fix goes in  the code but the bugs are
found by examining inputs and outputs.

Explanation:

You can look at the code all day and never find the bug.  Look at the
inputs and the, correct and incorrect, outputs.  Ask three questions:

1) When is the output correct ?  
2) When is the output incorrect?  
3) What is different?  

From the data and the answers you will infer the nature and location
of the bugs.  Then you can go fix the code that produced the buggy
data!

Art S. Kagel, kagel AT bloomberg DOT com