TABLE OF CONTENTS Does it occur to you that what s the matter with this case is that there are too many clues?
Lord Peter Wimsey
This chapter explains the methods of the amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey and how they can be applied to debugging software. This section begins by reviewing the life and character of Lord Peter. It summarizes the points of Wimsey s methodology that apply to software debugging and expands on the metaphor of a software defect as a crime. It concludes by identifying techniques that Lord Peter Wimsey employed in his detective work, with quotes from the Wimsey stories for each technique.
In this chapter we turn our attention to the life and wisdom of the amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.
It is useful to start by considering what we know about Lord Peter as a character. The following bibliographic entry, written in the style of the Who s Who directories of the time, comes from his creator:
WIMSEY, Peter Death Bredon, D.S.O.; born 1890, 2nd son of Mortimer Gerald Bredon Wimsey, 15th Duke of Denver, and of Honoria
Lucasta, daughter of Francis Delagardie of Bellingham Manor, Hants.
Educated: Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford (1st class honors, Sch. of Mod. Hist. 1912); served with H. M. Forces 1914/18 (Major, Rifle Brigade). Author of Notes on the Collecting of Incunabula, The Murderer s Vade-Mecum, and so forth. Recreations: Criminology; bibliophily; music; cricket.
Clubs: Marlborough; Egotists . Residences:...
