# Find that bug! Using a search engine as a programmer

DevFeed: [Find that bug! Using a search engine as a programmer](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/find-that-bug-using-a-search-engine-as-a-programmer-20993.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://codewithoutrules.com/2020/08/17/search-engine-programmers/>)

Author: Itamar Turner-Trauring

Published: 2020-08-17T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Itamar Turner-Trauring](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/itamar-turner-trauring.md>)

Topics: [Programming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/programming.md>), [issue tracker](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/issue-tracker.md>), [Python](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/python.md>), [Stack Overflow](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/stackoverflow.md>), [pandas](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/pandas.md>), [Logging](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/logging.md>), [GitHub](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/github.md>), [JSON](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/json.md>)

Tags: [bug](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/bug.md>), [documentation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/documentation.md>), [github](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/github.md>), [issue-tracker](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/issue-tracker.md>), [json](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/json.md>), [pandas](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pandas.md>), [python](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/python.md>), [search](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/search.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains how programmers can find solutions to bugs and programming problems by searching project-specific issue trackers, documentation, Stack Overflow, and other local resources alongside general search engines. It uses an Eliot and Pandas error as an example of a GitHub issue that a general search engine did not index.

## Source excerpt

Most bugs you encounter have been encountered by others before you; most programming problems you face have been faced by others as well. And many of those people have written down details about what they've learned--in issue trackers, documentation, and blog posts. All you have to do is find this information. Typing a phrase in to your search engine of choice will sometimes take you straight to the right answer. But quite often, the results aren't helpful. No need to give up, though: there are still plenty of ways you can productively keep searching. Use site-specific search too It's easy to believe that search engines have all the answers right at the top, but they actually hide quite a lot of content deep in their results. And some obscure content never gets indexed at all, which is unfortunate when it's the obscure content that you need to find. So instead of just using a search engine, use the local search engine of the project issue tracker, the documentation, StackOverflow, and so on. For example, let's saying you're using Eliot, a somewhat obscure Python logging library I maintain, and you want to use it with the Pandas library. Unfortunately, you get an error, so you search Google for the text of the error: eliot dataframe is not json serializable. Now, there is an actual issue in Eliot's GitHub issue tracker with this exact error message--but as of August 2020 Google doesn't return it, probably because it didn't bother to index that page. But if you were to use the search form on the Eliot GitHub project's issues page, you would find the issue that mentions this particular error. In this case, as in many others, the search engine isn't actually indexing everything: you have no choice but to use the local search engine. Local search engines often have the additional benefit of allowing more structured search, for example: An issue tracker might let you search by open/closed status, labels, or the affected version. StackOverflow questions are tagged with parti