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<p>For this reason, among others, I recommend that people new to the computer field (even students) read Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month.</p>
<p>But is this different than debugging in other fields? When taking EE lab classes, I experienced similar levels of exasperation trying to remove noise from circuits, etc. I actually found it easier to use a symbolic debugger than an oscilloscope (granted, the documentation I had on the former was more accessible than the latter at the time).</p>