Troubleshoot bugs in Software such as Pan Newsreader

Hello everyone, from my first post. For a while, I've been looking at some distros as an alternative to Windows. Currently using Kubuntu when not using windows. I mentioned Pan Newsreader because I was trying to use it with windows but was getting errors. I could not get any help at the website. So my question became, Why can't I fix this myself?" So that's where I'm looking for help getting on the right path. I imagine I'll have to get the source code for pan and use some editor and step through the code? I've worked with visual basic and MS office quite a bit if that might be similar to the necessary editor/language. If I can make any progress, I may be able to provide something useful to the community. I'd appreciate any help getting started. Unfortunately I have to start out "dumb as a rock".

PS I seem to recall PAN is written in Debian? Seems like i have a big mountain to climb.:study: