14. Learn How To Debug

Being able to debug well is one of — or perhaps the — most important skills a good developer can have. No matter how clean your code is, there will always be bugs. And with the rise of AI, this skill is more crucial than ever — because debugging is (still) not AI's strong suit.

But debugging is not something you easily learn from a tutorial. Most tutorials focus on writing new code — not on reading, understanding, and untangling someone else's code, let alone fixing bugs.

I learned how to debug the hard way: by doing it. A lot.

Back in 2005, I really wanted to work at Lost Boys, then one of the leading digital agencies in the Netherlands. I had recently graduated and applied for a UX designer role, but was rejected due to lack of experience. Since I was determined to work there, I applied for a maintenance engineer role instead — and got hired.

As a maintenance engineer, you don't build new features. You fix bugs in existing projects. And those projects weren't exactly well documented. In fact, some didn't even have the source code anymore. I had to decompile SWF files* just to make updates. Sometimes the code was in Dutch, French, or even Polish. No documentation. No AI. No decent translation tools. Not exactly a dream job for a developer.

But when you spend your days working on code you didn't write yourself, you really learn the craft. I got good at it — fast. Back then, I was a true full-stack developer: PHP, .NET, Java, Perl, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Flash (ActionScript). It was intense but incredibly educational.

After a year, I moved to the Flash department where I finally got to build cool projects myself — much more fun, of course. But in hindsight, that year as a maintenance engineer turned out to be a key part of my growth as a developer. Even today, I still benefit from those debugging skills every single day.

I've noticed that many developers struggle with debugging. And that has a direct impact on the speed and quality of a project. That's why this week's tile is:

Learn how to debug

And the only real way to learn it… is to do it. A lot. Honestly, every developer should start as a maintenance engineer.

In future posts, I'll dive deeper into how to debug.

How about you? How solid are your debugging skills? Do you agree that debugging might just be the most important skill to master?

Need help debugging your project? Get in touch — I'm happy to help!

*) For the younger crowd: SWF stands for Shockwave Flash — the go-to format for building flashy websites before HTML5 took over.