Archive for the ‘Bugtations’ Category
Saturday, October 25th, 2008
Yesterday was one of those days when I was in a good mood thinking about bugs. Suddenly a thought stroke me about the similar sounding words bacterium and bugterium (perhaps because I’m currently reading a theoretical biology book, Essays on Life Itself). I admit that it might be sounding the same only for a non-native English ear though. So the new definition was born:
Bugterium (pl. bugteria) - an instance of a memory dump analysis pattern found in a crash (memory, core) dump file.
Why a bugterium and not a cdarium? The motivation (with a hindsight) lies in the complexity of debugging (and life forms). While a bug is a complex thing (and a beast) and it takes sometimes days or weeks to chase and fix (kill) the one, a bugterium (bacterium) is of relatively smaller complexity and can be easily identified and dealt with by component removal or upgrade (massively killed). From software support perspective remember this bugtation No.14:
Crash dump analysis ”is anticipated with” joy, “performed with” eagerness, “and bragged about forever.”
Although the perceived simplicity of crash dump analysis is deceptive (bugtation No.2):
“It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious” crash.
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Announcements, Bugtations, Crash Dump Analysis, Crash Dump Patterns, Debugging, Fun with Crash Dumps, New Words, Software Technical Support | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
[Software] Defects “have a character of their own, but they also partake of” a program “character;” programs “have a character of” their “own, but” they “also partake of the world’s character.”
Oliver Wolf Sacks, Awakenings
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Code Reading, Debugging | No Comments »
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
“It takes a wise” engineer “to know when not to” debug.
Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Debugging, Software Technical Support | No Comments »
Monday, October 20th, 2008
Trace “back a little to” debug “further.”
John Clarke (1596-1658), Proverbs: English and Latine
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, CDF Analysis Tips and Tricks, Debugging | No Comments »
Saturday, October 18th, 2008
“The moment you have worked out” a code fix , “start checking it - it probably isn’t right.”
Edmund Callis Berkeley, Computers and Automation magazine, Right Answers: A Short Guide for Obtaining Them
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Debugging, Testing | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
The following bugtation is quite wise and dedicated to beginners learning WinDbg (see Common Mistakes and Coincidental Symbolic Information for some examples).
“You rule the” debugger, “not the” debugger “you”.
John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Common Mistakes, Crash Dump Analysis, Crash Dump Patterns, Debugging | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
“On Mind-Body problem and Afterlife: if Mind is merely a computation then what is left is a memory dump in the Body”.
Dmitry Vostokov
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Crash Dump Analysis, Fun with Crash Dumps, Philosophy, Science of Memory Dump Analysis | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
Although complex OS and computer systems are designed to never stop they actually do:
“The only sure thing about” computation “is that it will” stop.
Bret Harte, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, The Luck of Roaring Camp
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Crash Dump Analysis, Debugging, Science of Memory Dump Analysis | No Comments »
Monday, October 13th, 2008
“… those who have a natural talent for” troubleshooting “are generally quick at every other kind of knowledge …” debugging “is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.”
Plato, The Republic
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Debugging, Software Technical Support | No Comments »
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
Here is a bugtation to accompany my post about Debugging Architects:
“His brain, trained by long years of high” design “and plain” architecture, “had become too subtle, too refined an instrument for” debugging.
Stephen Leacock, Literary Lapses
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Debugging, Memory Dump Analysis Jobs | No Comments »
Friday, October 10th, 2008
“Good” troubleshooters “see analogies between” applications “or” services, “the very best ones see analogies between analogies.”
Stefan Banach
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Debugging, Software Technical Support, Troubleshooting Methodology | No Comments »
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
“If the” modules “in my” process “don’t work with or without” yours, “I cannot blame” you.
Francisco Alves, “If the brakes in my car don’t work with or without petrol in the fuel tank, I cannot blame the fuel”
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Debugging, Software Technical Support | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
“I’m gonna do better than learn to” troubleshoot, “I’m gonna learn to” debug.
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley, Roots
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Debugging, Software Technical Support | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
“Some of the greatest advances in” debugging “have been due to the invention of symbols, which it afterwards became necessary to explain;”
Aldous Leonard Huxley, Jesting Pilate
For explanation of symbols please read:
Crash Dumps for Dummies: Part 5 - Symbol files explained
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Crash Dump Analysis, Debugging | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
Reminiscence on a memory dump as an integer:
“The trouble with” memory dumps “is that we have examined only the very small ones. Maybe all the exciting stuff happens at really big” memory dumps, “ones we can’t even begin to think about in any very definite way. So maybe all the action is really inaccessible and we’re just fiddling around. Our brains have evolved to get us out of the rain, find where the berries are, and keep us from getting killed. Our brains did not evolve to help us grasp really large” memory dumps “or to look at things in a hundred thousand” memory locations.
Ronald Lewis Graham, quoted in “Computers, Pattern, Chaos and Beauty” by Clifford A. Pickover
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Crash Dump Analysis, Debugging, Fun with Crash Dumps, Philosophy, Science of Memory Dump Analysis | No Comments »
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Another variation of the previous bugtation No.40:
“Read” code “at whim!”
Randall Jarrell, A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Code Reading, Debugging | No Comments »
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Debug “at whim!” Debug “at whim!”
Randall Jarrell, A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Debugging | No Comments »
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Crash dumps “have another hypnotic effect. Because they are not immediately understood, they, like certain jokes, are suspected of holding in some sort of magic embrace the secret of” troubleshooting, “or at least some of its more” difficult “parts.”
Scott Milross Buchanan, Poetry and Mathematics
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Bugtations, Crash Dump Analysis, Debugging, Fun with Crash Dumps, Software Technical Support, Testing, Troubleshooting Methodology | No Comments »
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
Out of 61,500,000 Google hits for “Everything is” X I couldn’t find X == memory dump so I presume this quotation is also traced to me 
“Everything is memory dump.”
Dmitry Vostokov
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Announcements, Bugtations, Crash Dump Analysis, Debugging, Fun with Crash Dumps, Philosophy, Science of Memory Dump Analysis | No Comments »
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
Out of 85,800 Google hits for “In the beginning there was the” X I couldn’t find X == crash so I presume this quotation is traced to me
“In the beginning there was the crash.”
Dmitry Vostokov
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -
Posted in Announcements, Bugtations, Crash Dump Analysis, Debugging, Software Technical Support | No Comments »