It is quite normal for a novice to think that experience and knowledge of issues can lead to less time spent on "figuring out issues". However, a true confession from an experienced and matured professional from the industry would be quite the opposite. He/ she would not advocate this argument as a rule of thumb. The reason is quite simple. The experience and maturity warns the seasoned professional about several inherent risks involved in adopting the seemingly simple solution, possible conflicting interests of the stakeholders and many issues which never surface at a meeting table most of the times. It is an accepted practice that the value that a professional gets to the table is seen on the outcomes and not on his/ her fears of adopting the solution.
Yet, not everything should be seen from a negative angle here. Fortunately, things are happening for the better for novice professionals. Knowledge is not confined to the walls of the organizations or institutions they may be working in. Several resources, opinions and experiences can be found on the web.
References can be searched in some standard order of preference.
a) look for open projects/ community models / wikis for further information.
b) look for SEI/ computer society/ other peer reviewed literature/ technical reports
c) look for case studies from information shared from organizations
d) personal/ organizational experiences
Developers usually need not build debugging tools from scratch. They too can benefit from the research and references and options and choices in tools available. They can use agile methodologies as a natural approach to thinking deeper. Extreme programming techniques are proven methodologies for keeping the deeper levels of debugging and thinking focused in the right direction. They are helpful in "figuring out grey areas".
Once issues are figured out, experiences can be documented, preserved and used for future references and researh as a best practice.
