I’ve reviewed a bunch of books in the other reviews on my site and the first one contains the most recent book, which is from 2016. I’ve not come across many recent books that aren’t about how to use some tool for debugging instead of talking about debugging in general. If you can recommend a book I’d be happy to take a look.
That said, I suspect that three recent books capture the spirit well enough: Agans’ Debugging, Grötker et al.‘s The Developer’s Guide to Debugging, and Zeller’s Why Programs Fail. The essence is that you need to approach it with a good problem solving mindset and you must know your tools. Most discussion of debugging tends to supply advice on what tools to use and how to use them effectively. The key thing about modern debugging is that you have so much computing power available that you don’t need to be all that careful.
[Comment removed by author]
Another great review! Thanks @GeoffWozniak for taking the time to read these and the thoughtful synthesis.
This is very interesting. Wondering if you have anything to say about present day debugging.
I’ve reviewed a bunch of books in the other reviews on my site and the first one contains the most recent book, which is from 2016. I’ve not come across many recent books that aren’t about how to use some tool for debugging instead of talking about debugging in general. If you can recommend a book I’d be happy to take a look.
That said, I suspect that three recent books capture the spirit well enough: Agans’ Debugging, Grötker et al.‘s The Developer’s Guide to Debugging, and Zeller’s Why Programs Fail. The essence is that you need to approach it with a good problem solving mindset and you must know your tools. Most discussion of debugging tends to supply advice on what tools to use and how to use them effectively. The key thing about modern debugging is that you have so much computing power available that you don’t need to be all that careful.