• Blithe Rocher

    The Scientific Method of Troubleshooting

    About Blithe Rocher

    Blithe has a PhD in physical chemistry but changed careers to become a web developer at Big Nerd Ranch in Atlanta. Blithe has grown from RailsGirls participant to coach. She helps organize a monthly meetup for women interested in continuing to learn about Ruby on Rails. When she’s not crafting web applications or teaching new developers, she spends time traveling, riding her bike, or with her dog Nola.

    This talk

    For software engineers, troubleshooting is one of the toughest and most important skills to develop. When problems arise, a beginning developer's first instincts are to panic and head to StackOverflow. Rather than quick fixes, it's important to seek a deeper understanding of what went wrong.Biologists, chemists, and physicists increase understanding about the world by applying the logical steps of the scientific method to discover solutions to complex problems. Like scientists, developers can learn troubleshooting skills by treating each problem like a mini "science" experiment. In this talk we'll explore how using the scientific method can lead to greater understanding and more viable solutions to complex problems.