Appendix H · Acknowledgments & References¶
◎ A Note on Sources¶
This guide does not present a new theory of debugging. The discipline of debugging — reading errors, forming hypotheses, testing systematically, documenting findings — has been taught, written about, and refined by educators, researchers, and working programmers for decades.
What this guide attempts to do is bring that existing body of knowledge together in one place, organised by debugging maturity, written for the specific context of students and junior developers working across the languages and platforms common in CS and IT education today — and presented with consideration for how AI tools have changed the way programmers seek help.
Every source listed below contributed to the thinking, structure, or content of this guide. Where a specific idea, framework, or quotation is drawn directly from a source, it is cited in-text at the point of use with a footnote linking back to this list. This page provides the complete reference list in Harvard style, along with acknowledgments for tools and assistance used in the guide's development.
On citation style
References are presented in Harvard style (author-date) where an identifiable author or organisation and date are available. For web resources where no formal publication date is provided by the source, the citation includes an access date, in keeping with standard practice for online referencing.
◎ I. Primary Sources — Debugging Concepts and Frameworks¶
AWS (Amazon Web Services) (n.d.) What is debugging? Available at: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/debugging/ (Accessed: 2026).
Cornell University, Department of Computer Science (2024) CS1109: Lecture 10 — Testing and debugging. Available at: https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs1109/2024su/lectures/lec10_testing_debugging.pdf (Accessed: 2026).
Evans, J. (2022) A way to categorize debugging skills. Available at: https://jvns.ca/blog/2022/08/30/a-way-to-categorize-debugging-skills/ (Accessed: 2026).
freeCodeCamp (n.d.) How to ask good technical questions. Available at: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-ask-good-technical-questions/ (Accessed: 2026).
IBM (n.d.) What is debugging? IBM Think. Available at: https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/debugging (Accessed: 2026).
InfoWorld (n.d.) Learning and improving your debugging skills. Available at: https://www.infoworld.com/article/2164328/learning-and-improving-your-debugging-skills.html (Accessed: 2026).
Princeton University, Department of Computer Science (n.d.) Debugging (COS126: Introduction to Computer Science). Available at: https://introcs.cs.princeton.edu/java/15inout/debugging.html (Accessed: 2026).
SonarSource (n.d.) Debugging. Available at: https://www.sonarsource.com/resources/library/debugging/ (Accessed: 2026).
Stanford University, Department of Computer Science (n.d.) CS107 debugging guide. Available at: https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs107/resources/debugging.html (Accessed: 2026).
Stellenbosch University, Department of Computer Science (n.d.) CS144 debugging tips. Available at: https://cs.sun.ac.za/courses/cs144/Debugging/ (Accessed: 2026).
University of California, Berkeley (n.d.) CS61B debugging guide. Available at: https://www.learncs.site/docs/curriculum-resource/cs61b/cs61b_en/guides/debugging (Accessed: 2026).
University of New South Wales, School of Computer Science and Engineering (n.d.) Welcome to learning debugging. Available at: https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~learn/debugging/ (Accessed: 2026).
University of Washington, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering (2021) Debugging 101: Common compiler and runtime bugs (CSE142, Spring 2021 lecture materials). Available at: https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse142/21sp/files/debugging.pdf (Accessed: 2026).
Upsun (n.d.) Essential debugging techniques for developers: A complete guide. Available at: https://upsun.com/blog/debugging-techniques-for-developers/ (Accessed: 2026).
◎ II. Referenced Within Sources¶
The following work is referenced by Evans (2022) and informs the discussion of debugging expertise and the five categories of debugging knowledge in Section 04 · Developing Debugging Skills Over Time. It is included here for completeness, as cited by the secondary source.
Ko, A.J. and Myers, B.A. — research on novice and expert debugging strategies, as discussed in Evans, J. (2022) A way to categorize debugging skills. Available at: https://jvns.ca/blog/2022/08/30/a-way-to-categorize-debugging-skills/ (Accessed: 2026).
The "9 Indispensable Rules" framework referenced by the University of New South Wales (n.d.) resource originates from:
Agans, D.J. (2002) Debugging: The 9 indispensable rules for finding even the most elusive software and hardware problems. New York: AMACOM.
◎ III. Historical Reference¶
The account of the origin of the term "bug" in 00 · Introduction — What is Debugging? refers to the well-documented 1947 Harvard Mark II incident associated with Grace Hopper's team. This account is widely corroborated across computing history sources, including the Smithsonian Institution, where the original logbook page is held.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History (n.d.) Log book with computer bug. Available at: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_334663 (Accessed: 2026).
◎ IV. Acknowledgment of AI Assistance¶
This guide was developed with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic), an AI assistant, used for content drafting, structuring, code example generation, and editorial review across all sections of this guide.
Anthropic (2025) Claude [Large language model]. Available at: https://claude.ai (Accessed: 2026).
In keeping with the guide's own principles regarding AI use — covered in Asking for Help (Human or AI) and Finding Help — all AI-assisted content was reviewed, verified, and adapted by the author for accuracy, pedagogical appropriateness, and alignment with the guide's intended audience before inclusion.
◎ V. Tooling and Publishing¶
This guide is built using the following open-source tools:
MkDocs (n.d.) MkDocs: Project documentation with Markdown. Available at: https://www.mkdocs.org/ (Accessed: 2026).
Material for MkDocs (n.d.) Material for MkDocs. Available at: https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/ (Accessed: 2026).
The guide is published via GitHub Pages, with automated deployment configured through GitHub Actions.
◎ VI. How to Cite This Guide¶
If referencing this guide in your own work, the suggested citation format is:
Sookha, J. (2026) Debugging Guide 2026. Available at: https://jesselsookha.github.io/debugging-guide-2026/ (Accessed: [date]).
◎ Contributor Notes¶
This guide is a living document. As content is revised, expanded, or corrected, this reference list will be updated to reflect new sources consulted. Suggestions for additional sources, corrections to existing citations, or reports of broken links are welcome via the project's GitHub repository.
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