Debugging Windows Programs: Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Visual C++ Programmers

Rating:
Summary: Bugs? My codes only have features...
Review: This book should have been included with the MS Visual C++ documentation. If you can say "My code doesn't have bugs, only features," then you may skip this book. I found this book full of tips and tricks and secrets of visual c++ debugging. Just by having this book on your side, you will save hours and hours of frustration trying to find that one line that's keeping you from going home.
Beginning few chapters are basic debugging knowledge every visual C++ programmers should be aware of. It explains more of 'preventive' programming styles so that you notice your bugs before your customers. Various topics including assert and compiler options are well explained, much better than the ones you would find in the vc++ documentation.
I was happy to finally see some explanation on Dr. Watson messages. In Chapter 6: Debugging with Windows, Woodring and McKay explains all the precious information buried in those memory dumps that we often ignore. After all, all those hexadecimal numbers got to mean something, right?
If you have been always unsure about your multithread knowledge, this book contains a good section on multithread programming issues and how to monitor your threads from the debugger.
And for those who can't sleep at night because of some odd bug buried in thousands of lines of code, I recommend jumping right into Chapter 12: Desperate Measures. You are probably too frustrated to think straight now. Let this book help you calm down and look through your code step by step. This chapter simply provides a code checking checklist that you should probably copy down and tape it to your monitor.
For those of you that are starting a fresh batch of code and thinking about buying this book, my recommendation is to read this book first, then code. You'll be a lot happier later. And for those of you that have already written a few million lines of code and trying to debug, you can apply some of the techniques found in this book to build up confidence in your code. I suppose if you live dangerously ("Just let 'er rip and hope for the best"), then most of the things explained in this book will only seem annoying to you, but I'm sure most of you programmers out there would like to know a few neat debugging tricks to show off in front of your co-workers.

Rating:
Summary: Bugs? My codes only have features...
Review: This book should have been included with the MS Visual C++ documentation. If you can say "My code doesn't have bugs, only features," then you may skip this book. I found this book full of tips and tricks and secrets of visual c++ debugging. Just by having this book on your side, you will save hours and hours of frustration trying to find that one line that's keeping you from going home.
Beginning few chapters are basic debugging knowledge every visual C++ programmers should be aware of. It explains more of 'preventive' programming styles so that you notice your bugs before your customers. Various topics including assert and compiler options are well explained, much better than the ones you would find in the vc++ documentation.
I was happy to finally see some explanation on Dr. Watson messages. In Chapter 6: Debugging with Windows, Woodring and McKay explains all the precious information buried in those memory dumps that we often ignore. After all, all those hexadecimal numbers got to mean something, right?
If you have been always unsure about your multithread knowledge, this book contains a good section on multithread programming issues and how to monitor your threads from the debugger.
And for those who can't sleep at night because of some odd bug buried in thousands of lines of code, I recommend jumping right into Chapter 12: Desperate Measures. You are probably too frustrated to think straight now. Let this book help you calm down and look through your code step by step. This chapter simply provides a code checking checklist that you should probably copy down and tape it to your monitor.
For those of you that are starting a fresh batch of code and thinking about buying this book, my recommendation is to read this book first, then code. You'll be a lot happier later. And for those of you that have already written a few million lines of code and trying to debug, you can apply some of the techniques found in this book to build up confidence in your code. I suppose if you live dangerously ("Just let 'er rip and hope for the best"), then most of the things explained in this book will only seem annoying to you, but I'm sure most of you programmers out there would like to know a few neat debugging tricks to show off in front of your co-workers.

Rating:
Summary: A MUST HAVE. PERIOD!
Review: This is the best book in debugging I have ever seen. What I like most about this book in addition to the technical value it has, is being concise and more to the point. There no much unnecessary detail. For people with little patience on reading like me, this will take you directly to the problem you have.

- The book covers the most common issues a developer needs while debugging his application. I will not go into detail, but things like debugging memory problems or finding where your application crashed (in the source code level) having the crash address, to deadlocks and multithreading.

- The best chapter in the book in my openion is the multithreading and deadlock analysis. The best treatment in a book. Its coverage is even better than John Robin's book.

If you have to buy only one book about debugging, buy this one. Only if you are rich, and willing to buy another one just for the sake of it, buy John Robin's

Rating:
Summary: Rich with Information and Well Written
Review: Writing versatile C++ is serious business. Moreover, the added complexity of Win32, MFC and ATL make debugging a challenging task. Simple techniques such as use of TRACE() statements and Watch facilities alleviates minor problems. While there are several authoritative texts on C++ and VC++, the same cannot be said for debugging techniques. This book rounds out the library of serious VC++ developers nicely. It is an absolutely amazing text. It's scholarly yet approachable. Moreover, as someone with an extensive library (including C++ and Win32 etc.), I can attest that there is nonetheless "new" information presented to me that is quite useful. The beginning of the text addresses philosophical issues in helping prevent bugs. The next section gives great guidance in actually using the debug facilities of Visual Studio most thoroughly. The last section covers issues specific to COM and multithreading. This text has a wealth of useful information. There is a good introduction to the Intel instruction set and use of MAP files for postmortem debugging. (I wish there were a text of the same caliber that covers use of and debugging Intel's MMX.) This book will definitely help users (beginner or expert) achieve a higher plane(42).

Rating:
Summary: Rich with Information and Well Written
Review: Writing versatile C++ is serious business. Moreover, the added complexity of Win32, MFC and ATL make debugging a challenging task. Simple techniques such as use of TRACE() statements and Watch facilities alleviates minor problems. While there are several authoritative texts on C++ and VC++, the same cannot be said for debugging techniques. This book rounds out the library of serious VC++ developers nicely. It is an absolutely amazing text. It's scholarly yet approachable. Moreover, as someone with an extensive library (including C++ and Win32 etc.), I can attest that there is nonetheless "new" information presented to me that is quite useful. The beginning of the text addresses philosophical issues in helping prevent bugs. The next section gives great guidance in actually using the debug facilities of Visual Studio most thoroughly. The last section covers issues specific to COM and multithreading. This text has a wealth of useful information. There is a good introduction to the Intel instruction set and use of MAP files for postmortem debugging. (I wish there were a text of the same caliber that covers use of and debugging Intel's MMX.) This book will definitely help users (beginner or expert) achieve a higher plane(42).