Google Software Developer Mock Interview
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Question 13 of 30
If hired by Google, one of your tasks will be to debug your and other developer's code. As a software developer, explain the meaning of debugging and why it's used?
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William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
In the software debugging world, the process starts as soon as code is written and continues in successive stages of the development process and is then combined with other units of programming to form a software product. Debugging is a multistep process that involves identifying a problem, isolating the source of the problem, and then correcting the problem. Please remember this since the Google technical manager who knows development and debugging well will quiz you on multiple facets of this area. It's essential to note that hiring managers will want to find out how good the quality of your code is. The reason is they will know how much time you will be spending on the debugging process. If you maintain a high-quality code level, you'll be doing less debugging; if your code is average or not great, you'll be spending a lot more time debugging, which managers might see as a weakness. Please be aware of this.
William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
"In short, debugging is an important part of determining why an operating system, application, or program is behaving abnormally. When I do debug, there are many things that I take into account during this process. For larger lines of code, I conduct unit testing and pair programming, which helps me identify bugs at an earlier stage. I also use the stand-alone debugger tool to identify bugs further. I've always been conscious of my work and only want to produce top-quality work. To further understand where bugs may reside, I also look at the module to see if the problem avails itself. If not, I set up a 'breakpoint' and run a program to see it run its course. After performing debugging and testing, I do come across errors that I address and correct immediately. Some examples are...Syntax errors, Runtime errors, Logic errors, Semantic errors, etc. Does this mirror the process you use here at Google?"
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