Sites:
Home > Technical Library > Industrial and Engineering Software > Chapter 4: Professor Solomon

Chapter 4: Professor Solomon

By Robert Charles Metzger
From Debugging By Thinking: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Maybe you re ready, after all these years, to become a Finder, not a Loser.

Professor Solomon

4.1 Preview

This chapter explains the methods of the master of finding lost things, Professor Solomon, and how they can be applied to debugging software. Professor Solomon s work purports to be nonfiction, so the treatment is different from that of Holmes and Wimsey. Part of Professor Solomon s work contains twelve principles for finding lost things. This chapter applies those principles to finding the causes of bugs.

4.2 The methods of Professor Solomon

4.2.1 How to find lost objects

Professor Solomon isn t a professor, nor is he a detective. His advice on how to find lost objects is nonetheless in the best tradition of Sherlock Holmes and Lord Peter Wimsey. They spend little of their literary lives looking for lost objects. Real detectives, however, are often hired to find missing persons and sometimes missing objects as well.

Most of Professor Solomon s book is devoted to his twelve principles for finding lost objects:

  1. Don t look for it.

  2. It s not lost you are.

  3. Remember the three c s.

  4. It s where it s supposed to be.

  5. Look for domestic drift.

  6. You re looking right at it.

  7. The camouflage effect.

  8. Think back.

  9. Look once, look well.

  10. The eureka zone.

  11. Tail thyself.

  12. It wasn t you.

4.2.2 Applying Professor Solomon s method to debugging

Our approach to applying the professor s method is to make an analogy between lost objects and unknown causes of defects. The lost object is instead an action or lack of action occurring...

Copyright Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. 2004 under license agreement with Books24x7
Products & Services
Aerospace Contactors
Aerospace contactors are high-performance, high-capacity, circuit controls designed for aerospace applications.
Gas Instruments
Gas instruments detect, monitor or analyze gases present in an environment.
Magnetic Proximity Sensors
Magnetic proximity sensors include devices that work on inductive, variable reluctance, magneto resistive or Hall effect principles. Proximity sensors detect the presence or absence of an object using a critical distance.
Pressure Sensors
Pressure sensors include all sensors, transducers and elements that produce an electrical signal proportional to pressure or changes in pressure.
Inductive Proximity Sensors
Inductive proximity sensors detect the presence or absence of an object using a critical distance.
Topics of Interest

5.1 Case Study 1 5.1.1 The program The purpose of the case studies in this book is to demonstrate the use of some of the concepts presented in the preceding chapters. The defects analyzed are...

Chapter List Chapter 19: DOA Antenna Array Measurement and System Calibration Chapter 20: ESPAR Antenna Signal Processing for DOA Estimation Chapter 21: A New DOA Estimation Method for...

Continuing advances in infrared technology have resulted in fail-to-safe hydrocarbon gas point detectors that continuously monitor combustible gases and vapors within the lower explosive limit (LEL)...

Automatic identification of load cells and other sensors reduces human errors while speeding the task of swapping in new hardware. The key to creating a TEDSTagcompliant load cell is this DS2401...

Overview Temperature may be measured with the basic thermometer to the more advanced nuclear temperature measurement. In most cases, the temperature element voltage or resistance has to be amplified...