One of the best pieces of programming advice I've ever received was from my undergrad advisor. "You'll never win a staring contest with the code." If you're in

One of the best pieces of programming advice I've ever received was from my undergrad advisor. "You'll never win a staring contest with the code." If you're in the middle of debugging and you find yourself staring at the code hoping that it will suddenly reveal answers, that's not a productive position to be in. In those cases, better to figure out what diagnostics can help, and to get more information.