Debugging Applications for Microsofta .Net and Microsoft Windowsa [With CDROM]

by John Robbins

You get huge development advantages with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003--but you need a new bag of debugging tricks to take full advantage of them in today's .NET and Win32 development worlds.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735615365
• ISBN13: 9780735615366
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Microsoft Press
• Length: 848 Pages
• Weight: 3.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.3" x 7.6" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A very useful discussion of Windows debugging practices

This book brings a vast amount of Windows-specific debugging information together in one place and has been very helpful to me. Some of this info could be found elsewhere, but only by sorting through dozens of documentation pages and magazine articles, some many years old, and additionally the author adds value by giving very explicit instructions (even providing source code) on how to do things that are often only hinted at in the Microsoft documentation. Most useful to me were the symbol-server tips, the SuperAssert macro and seeing how it does it what it does, crash handling in general, and the author's insight into why certain things are so slow (like OutputDebugString). This book does have a not-so-subtle anti-C++ bias, there are little digs at C++ coding techniques throughout the book, which seem a little antiquated and inappropriate in 2005. In the chapter on the debug C-runtime, I'm really surprised the author does not suggest writing a leak-detection system that captures the callstack at the time of allocation, I've found the C-runtime's file-and-line-oriented leak report fairly useless since the allocation is often deep inside some container class, you really need to know what code caused the allocation, not what code actually did the allocation. And the recommended feature that walks the entire heap every N allocations is unusable (it's too slow) in a large C++ program which might have many thousands of allocations. Also, redefining C++ keywords as suggested seems so evil, there are better ways of doing this. I believe Windows XP Service Pack 2 changed some Windows internals that affect crash handling/debugging/stack walking, I wouldn't mind seeing an updated volume that covers these changes in detail. Overall though, an excellent book, the most useful debugging book I've found so far.

Very well done book!

This book is a book for the advanced programmer who says "I already know how to build a halfway decent windows app, how do I take my debugging to the next level and deliver truly good apps?" This book covers real-world debugging issues that plague programmers and are difficult to solve, such as multi-threading and memory issues amongst others. Also this book has several entertaining real-world scenarios that can help give you perspective on debugging. However this book is not for the beginner, a solid grasp of programming is essential for this book. However those with a good grasp of what programming is about with at least a basic knowledge of .NET will be right at home with this book.

Twice the fun of the original

The original was a gem, and I used it extensively, but the code and tools that came with that version are now out of date. The .NET version adds tremendous value with a whole new suite of power debugging tools that just weren't there before. Although a few of the introductory chapters are similar, it's a huge overhaul of the original once you get into the heart of the book.I've been using the native code sections of this book, rather than the .NET sections. Most of the book, expecially the power debugging stuff, is still focused on native code. However, I don't think the "Below the belt..." review did this book justice. If you are at all serious about debugging on Windows platforms, read and use this book.

Wow this is good

Well, that guy that wrote the review before me says he's Robbins's greatest fan. Well, after reading this book, I'd like to claim that distinction for myself.This was an eye opener from start to finish and a MUST HAVE for any professional developer, even if you aren't using .NET.Like everything else from Wintellect, this book is superb.