[EnigmaFlare]

I use this technique all the time to help people who are stuck with problems using software - often cause by bugs. Divide-and-conquer quickly isolates the issue. I try to share the technique when I use it, or just offer it as a suggestion.

Part of why it's so useful is you hardly have understand anything about the system internally. Just reduce the complexity of what you're doing until it works to find the lower bound if you don't already have a working case.

That random guessing is like gambling - you hope for a big quick payout but when your hypothesis fails, you end up worse off than before. Wasted time and no closer to the solution.