Advanced Windows Debugging: An Introduction with Mario Hewardt and Daniel Pravat

Software Developers Mario Hewardt and Daniel Pravat understand the complexities of debugging applications that run on Windows. In fact, they understand it so well they wrote a book, Advanced Windows Debugging. They will also be presenting their knowledge at the PDC in October during both the PreCon and regular conference. The PreCon is a chance to learn the ins and outs of windows debugging, how to use various tools, what to look for in your code in terms of buggy patterns and go way deep into the art of native debugging today. It's an incredibly interesting topic and debugging can be very, very hard. With the tools of today, you can find bugs in minutes compared to days. I highly recommend both their book (I now have a copy!) and their PreCon at PDC 08. Do check it out!

Here, we talk, at a high level, about the complexities of debugging, common problems that require debugging tools to understand and we get a demo of how to track down a handle leak in less than five minutes. In the end, debuggers will lead you back to your code and point you to the errors of your ways. When compared to the toolset we had just 5 years ago, 2008 is a great year for debuggers!

Tune in. Enjoy.