In this talk from RubyFringe, Tom Preston-Werner, one of the founders of GitHub, talks about "Conceptual Algorithms".
Tom walks us through a problem he encountered while writing the god tool. The Ruby process running god was leaking memory - for no obvious reason. Tom explains how he methodically explored the problem and tracked down the source of the problem. (Spoiler: it was a sneaky problem in the Ruby interpreter).
Tom finishes up by explaining his reasons to chose projects, and what he considers the "deathbed filter".
Watch Tom Preston-Werner on "Conceptual Algorithms".
InfoQ Homepage News Presentation: Conceptual Algorithms