Software Diagnostics Library

Memory Analysis Patterns (MAPs) including memory dump, malware, software trace (TAPs), and other patterns and pattern catalogs from Software Diagnostics Institute form the very rich semantic network. Now it is possible (by using a metaphorical bijection) to create a catalog of General Patterns of Abnormal Structure and Behaviour including software, hardware, biological behavior including animal (ethology) and human behavior, sociological and historical behavior including economics, business and finance, ethics and law, and even behavior of chemical and physical systems. Such “GAPs of Structure and Behavior” may include wait chains, spikes, deadlocks, etc. We provide more specific examples in the forthcoming parts. So we are a few steps closer to realization of my old dangerous idea of a parameterized science of universal memory dumps by the so called science files or might event a general diagnostics discipline.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

If you liked An Introduction to General Systems Thinking book then you really need this comprehensive introduction which is more formal. Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of pages, you only need to read part 1, the first 218 pages as the rest is a collection of articles you can read selectively later on. For me one of the great features was the coverage of systems literature including some mathematical treatment books (including category theory in addition to famous Rosen’s books such as Anticipatory Systems). I also liked the discussion of critics of general systems theory that points to the fact that it should be called general systems-theory not general-systems theory. Highly recommended.

Facets of Systems Science (IFSR International Series on Systems Science and Engineering)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

Bought this book in Russian translation and quickly read from cover to cover. Very lively introduction without any utopian suggestions to change the world like in another introduction I read previously: Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism. A few funny cartoons like an employee who fires himself to save his company. Recommended to read before more cryptic The Philosophy of Marx by Étienne Balibar.

Marx (mode d’emploi)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

In 2008 when writing the first version of this review I admitted that Semiotics was a big gap in my education which mostly lied in natural and computer sciences. I knew less about social sciences and tried to fill various gaps. The reason why I came upon this discipline is that I’m interested in signs and their interpretations, especially their relation to various structures. I started reading this book in September, 2008.

Semiotics: The Basics

As a by-product of reading I was able to provide the kind of a theoretical explanation for the phenomenon of bugtations:

Bugtations: a semiotic approach

Now after more than 3 years of intermittent reading I finally finished this book. In the mean time I was able to apply Semiotics to memory dump and software trace analysis (Memiotics) and now I also use it in connection with Software Narratology (an application of literary narratology to software narratives such as traces and event logs). What is also good about this book in addition to clearly explained concepts is a very good closing chapter summarising the whole book and the field, extensive reading guide, summary of leading schools, and a very good glossary. There is also an online book with extra materials:

http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/S4B/

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

Software narratological approach can be useful for writing, analyzing and validating historical narratives. Trace and event log messages play the role of historical events where process ids are assigned to particular historical institutions and their representatives. Threads serve the role of historical entities like persons. Modules play the role of shared ideologies. We already use this approach for writing history books.

This can also work on a different level such as analyzing a history of debugging as a sequence of troubleshooting and debugging stories. More on this later as I plan to provide concrete examples from history. For the time being please read how software narratology and memoretics (the study of memory snapshots) help fiction writers as well.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Whereas Marx considered commodities as having surplus values and Baudrillard considered them as semiotic signs, philosophy of Memoidealism considers them as containing memories and linked by memories. People use commodities to evoke memories (either personal or collective) and use them for further communication. You can find such examples everywhere and the use of memories (including superstructure and means of production memories used to store the personal ones) has increased dramatically. We call this analysis XRAM to distinguish from original Marx analysis and its derivatives and extensions. In the future memories will also have exchange value and replace money.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

This book I bought in a local Costa bookshop and found it was written by an Irish sociologist Kieran Allen. Shortly before my interest in Marxism was inspired by seeing a link to Irish communist party website and socialist bookshop in a booklet for Dublin Culture nights festival. It was a bit funny to see communists as part of Irish culture festival especially for me from former Soviet Union. Anyway, later I saw on streets that Marxist festivals are popular in Ireland nowadays. So let’s go back to the book. I found it very good and even lucid in explaining various Marxist ideas and vocabulary. A good start for more advance reading such as “Capital” (I have all 3 hardcover volumes from an Indian publisher and plan to have leather bound edition from Russia if I have enough surplus and MEW German edition) or specialized books such as “A Dictionary of Marxist Thought”. What I also tend to agree with the author is that Stalinism is a mirror of Capitalism (there is also a book “Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization” that I’m reading). I leave an application of a dialectical method of double negation to a reader here. Now the weak points of the book: 1) it doesn’t cover post-Stalinist era; 2) subsequent analysis of alternatives sounds a bit naive for me who really lived in socialism and can compare it to capitalism both in post-socialist country and now living in real capitalist country. The book also has a good reading suggestion list and I even thinking now on reading Voloshinov book “Marxism and the Philosophy of Language” (in Russian, although there is an English edition). Anyway, I would recommend Kieran’s book with reservations (about alternatives) as a first introduction to Marxist thought.

Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

After reading many history books I found that the real historical, sociological and psychological force (often seen unconscious from outside) is the will to be memorized (saved in memories, in memory dumps, also called as the will to be remembered) and not the will to power (Nietzsche). As often with the will it is also linked with vices and virtues. For the vice side we site Michael Burleigh: “Concern with posterity was apparent among the Nazi leadership, […]” and what we see now “… B-movie villains were self-consciously assigning themselves parts within an A-movie which runs and runs” today (documentaries, books, magazines, TV and the so called ‘Hitler industry’ “by the way of continuity”). As a more recent example, the recent tragedy in Norway clearly shows the desire of the protagonist to be memorized (masqueraded as a political agenda).

This is not to say that the will to power is not important, it is important by the way that by being memorized you actually exert more power in the future. Memorianity (memory religion) and its philosophical foundation (memoidealism) promote the will to be memorized as a virtue if all your deeds are seen as a virtue (see Memorianity and Morality).

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

As the new decade is approaching (2011-2020) we would like to make a few previews and predictions:

- Increased complexity of software will bring more methods from biological, social sciences and humanities in addition to existing methods of automated debugging and computer science techniques

- Focus on first fault software problem solving (when aspect)

- Focus on pattern-driven software problem solving (how aspect)

- Fusion of debugging and malware analysis into a unified structural and behavioral pattern framework

- Visual debugging, memory and software trace visualization techniques

- Software maintenance certification

- Focus on domain-driven troubleshooting and debugging tools as a service (debugware TaaS)

- Focus on security issues related to memory dumps and software traces

- New scripting languages and programming language extensions for debugging

- The maturation of the science of memory snapshots and software traces (memoretics)

Imagining is not not limited to the above and more to come and explain in the forthcoming parts.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Do we need to debug, really? (Selling the Debug Ethic¹)

Whilst debugging leads to wealth
and will keep you in good health,
so its best to be contented with your bugs.

Debug, boys, debug and be contented,
As long as you’ve enough to buy a computer.
The man, you may rely, will be wealthy by and by,
If he’ll only put his finger to the debugger.

Harry Clifton (1824-1872)

¹Bugtated the title of the book I’m reading now and a song from it: Selling the Work Ethic: From Puritan Pulpit to Corporate PR

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

I was thinking for some time about applying crash dump analysis patterns (later including software trace analysis patterns and more recently structural memory patterns) to History (one of my favourite study subjects) using metaphorical bijectionism as I tried before with the analysis of project failures. Yesterday I found this book that applies the perspective of patterns in natural sciences to History (according to its description):

Pattern and Repertoire in History

I plan to review the book and highlight the differences and similarities between the authors’ and mine patternist approaches to History.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

This is an encyclopedic work I bought in a local book shop and finally finished reading today. It took me a year to read from cover to cover and pages were falling out of the glue but I continued to read. Highly recommended for education and another view on human history. The review of Freud was enlightening to me because I didn’t know about the recent scholarship criticizing his work. In fact, I so liked this book that just bought it again in a hardcover version from Folio Society and start rereading it again soon.

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

The second encyclopedic book seems was written before the previous one but looks like the logical sequel to it. I’m starting reading it next week.

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -