Software Diagnostics Library

I wasn’t active last 3 months although I have many cached managerial thoughts in my Moleskine notebook that I plan to start publishing in September.

ManagementBits Blog:

Expectations, expectations…

Management Bit and Tip 0×800

I don’t remember whether I told this before or not but all management bits are available in a handy bit string here:

Management Bit String

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

There were no updates last two months primarily because I was still reading huge books 1,000 pages each. One of them was The Road to Reality that I started in March and finished only a few weeks ago. When I was about two-thirds through it and I thought that I could never finish it a sign happened to shed the light on the possible end. While commuting from work a shadow from the train window sign projected ”Exit” on the book and I asked  to take a picture of this event:

LiterateScientist Blog:

Under Pressure

Breaking the Spell

Darwin’s Dangerous Idea

The Skeptical Environmentalist

Ideas and Modern Mind 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Yesterday I sent to print the first draft version with finalized covers for editing in situ. I usually do editing on the real book. Then error corrections and layout improvements can be done in real WYSIWYG hardcopy book mode. What’s new in Volume 2:

- 45 new crash dump analysis patterns
- Pattern interaction and case studies
- Updated checklist
- Fully cross-referenced with Volume 1
- New appendixes

I aim to publish paperback and digital versions on the 3st of October and hardcover version on the 1st of November. Table of Contents will be announced in soon.

Here’s the book cover:

Back cover features visualized virtual process memory generated from a memory dump of colorimetric computer memory dating sample using Dump2Picture.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

I recently started reading a book written by Peter Watson “Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud” where he points to common tripartite view of intellectual history. Reflecting on it, I also came up with my own view about the history of debugging. The main three ideas are:

- Forward debugging

Conventional debugging where an engineer starts with initial conditions and during debugging tries to reproduce the problem or see the anomalies on the way to it. Delta debugging also falls into this category.

- Memory dump analysis

Taking memory slices for remote or postmortem analysis. Helps in problem identification, effective and efficient troubleshooting and also in debugging hard to reproduce or non-reproducible bugs.

- Backward debugging

Also called time travel debugging. Although mostly in its early stages of development this debugging method is the future. In the most simple way, but technologically infeasible at the moment, it can be implemented as recording memory dumps in succession with every tick. Currently, to avoid saving redundant information and conserve storage the code is altered to save context dependent information for every processor instruction or high-level programming language statement. Another approach that comes with virtualization is coarse-grained backward debugging where memory and execution state is saved at certain important points or after specified time intervals.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Just noticed that the new book will be published this August:

The Developer’s Guide to Debugging

Table of contents is available here:

Springer (ISBN: 978-1-4020-5539-3 TOC)

I’ve pre-ordered it and once I get it and read it I’ll post a review.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

I was very pleased to notice that the reference to crash dump analysis patterns and Memory Dump Analysis Anthology book appeared on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debugging 

Special thanks to a person who added this information!

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Previously I noticed that it reached #1 bestseller status in Assembly Language Programming category but today I see it #1 bestseller in Debugging category:

And again, I remind that because the status is updated every hour you might not see the same status when you read this post

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

This little quotation book is a perfect gift to any software engineer or scientist:

It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature!: Computer Wit and Wisdom

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Just came from Russia where in the woods of Udmurtia I found this bug:

It will be on a front page of one of my forthcoming books scheduled by the end of August.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

In July-August Opentask publisher plans to have its own website. In the mean time here is the additional list of books to be published in the next 5-7 years starting from 2009 onwards:

- Memiotics (ISBN-13: 978-1906717087)

- Voice Recognition: Command and Control (ISBN-13: 978-1906717094)

- Memory Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Approach (ISBN-13: 978-1906717117)

- Deep Down C++ (ISBN-13: 978-1906717124)

- Management Bits: An Anthology from Reductionist Manager (ISBN-13: 978-1906717131)

- Classical, Quantum and Nonlinear Memoretics (ISBN-13: 978-1906717186)

- Crash Dump: A Software Engineering Autobiography (ISBN-13: 978-1906717193)

- Memoidealism: A New Kind of Philosophy (ISBN-13: 978-1906717209)

including 10-volume edition of Software Engineering Notebooks:

- Software Engineering Notebooks, Volume 1 (ISBN-13: 978-1906717148)

Details will be announced later on the publisher’s website.

Note: the book about voice recognition stands apart from the others. This is actually the title of the first book I wanted to write 5 years ago.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

I’m thinking big for a full-color book to celebrate the forthcoming anniversary of Memory Dump Analysis Anthology. Preliminary details:

• Title: Encyclopedia of Crash Dump Analysis Patterns
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Publisher: Opentask (15 April 2009)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.0
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-21-6
• Paperback: 400 pages

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

The work for Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 2 is underway and it is natural to use the modular structure of a book heap again for its front cover. Now it is the partial reading list for this year (click to enlarge):

In addition to memory dump allegory the picture also symbolizes kernel / user space split of 4Gb virtual address space :-) Of course, this is just the base image and the book title will be put somewhere on it.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Many people expressed interest in expanding Practical Foundations of Debugging (x64) and merging it with commented version of Practical Foundations of Debugging (x86) and Reading Windows-based Code. I therefore decided to dedicate some time during the next two months for this task and publish a book. Its main purpose is to help technical support and escalation engineers, testers and software developers without the knowledge of assembly language and C to master all necessary prerequisites to understand and start debugging and crash dump analysis on Windows platforms. It doesn’t require any specific knowledge, fills the gap and lowers the learning curve required for Advanced Windows Debugging and for my own books. It will also serve as a hardware complement to my seminars that I give from time to time. More details will be posted later but for now there are preliminary product details:

• Title: Windows Debugging: Practical Foundations
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Publisher: Opentask (01 February 2009)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-10-0
• Paperback: 200 pages

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

From “coordinated coping” to “what feels like chaos can feel like a dance - a fast one” - say Francoise Tourniaire and Richard Farrell in their infuential book “The Art of Software Support”. I totally agree and from my observation the most successful (not stressful) people in software support are “dancing” when dealing with everyday and hot customer issues. You see them literally thriving on inherent chaos. Truly multitaskers and even multithreaders!

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

This new book will be published later this year:

Concurrent Programming on Windows Vista: Architecture, Principles, and Patterns (Microsoft .NET Development Series)

Although it is featured in Microsoft .NET Development Series I believe that it might be very interesting read for both unmanaged and managed code developers and escalation engineers. Understanding concurrency and having the ability to see its patterns is the crucial skill for crash dump analysis and debugging of complex software issues. I pre-ordered it myself and write a review once it is in print.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Just discovered that China has its own 1000 page Windows debugging book:

ISBN: 9787121064074 (June, 2008)

Author is Zhang Yinkui (Raymond Zhang).

Google translation is quite impressive:

Automatically translated

Automatically translated Table of Contents

Original

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

A. Both have online versions of processor manuals. But Intel also ships them in paper format for free (the paper is worse in the latest revision than 2 years ago but books are a bit lighter now):

Information on how to order them can be found here:

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/index.htm

AMD docs can be downloaded from here:

http://developer.amd.com/documentation/guides/Pages/default.aspx

Comparing both online manuals I see sometimes that certain concepts are explained better in AMD docs and vice versa, so it is recommended to check both. It is also evident that AMD and Intel had to rephrase instruction descriptions differently when they talk about the same things, for example, BOUND instruction:

AMD:  Check Array Bound
Intel:  Check Array Index Against Bounds

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Crash dump analysis is a support activity. Therefore understanding software support business is important. I recently started abbreviating book titles for my personal book reading accounting purposes and here accidentally emerges the ASS abbreviation that reminds me every time that support guys cover “asses” of software engineers designing and developing software and expose their own “asses” when talking to customers :-)

I’m sorry if I offended someone here…

The Art of Software Support

The book was on my shelf for 4 years and only today I got the message :-) 

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

Motivated by The Science of Sherlock Holmes I plan to write a book about the history of debugging with the following preliminary product details and tentative release date (which may come earlier if I have enough time):

• Title: The Science of Dr. Watson: An Illustrated History of Debugging
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Publisher: Opentask (01 September 2010)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-07-0
• Paperback: 256 pages

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -

More books to come in 2009. One of them is full-color book illustrated with beautiful visual images emerging from inherent modularized structure of modern operating systems and applications. Preliminary product details:

• Title: Computer Memory Visualization
• Authors: Jamie Fenton, Dmitry Vostokov
• Publisher: Opentask (01 February 2009)
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 28 x 21.6
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-06-3
• Paperback: 64 pages

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -