https://selectivity.net/tags/debugging/ Recent content in Debugging on Selectivity.net Hugo en-us Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://selectivity.net/selectivity-makes-large-bug-reports-easier-to-understand/ Sat, 24 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://selectivity.net/selectivity-makes-large-bug-reports-easier-to-understand/ <p>A minimal reproducer is a small example that still demonstrates a problem. It gives the person investigating a bug less material to read and fewer irrelevant details to carry through each experiment. Getting there is often laborious. You remove a group of rows, rerun the program, discover that the failure has vanished, restore the rows and try a smaller group. It is useful work, just rather repetitive.</p> <p>Selectivity turns that routine into a search driven by a predicate. The predicate is a command that answers whether the particular behavior survives in the candidate input. Selectivity begins with larger deletions and works toward smaller ones when necessary. Each successful deletion becomes the new starting point. Eventually the engine reaches individual units, such as one line or one file, and checks whether removing any of them still preserves the predicate.</p>