Reviews for Why Programs Fail: A Guide to Systematic Debugging

1. A must-read for novices

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, August 12th, 2008

   This book gives the art of debugging a very pragmatic and scientific treatment. In fact, it is one of few books on the subject that can genuinely help programmers to improve their debugging skills (the chapter on scientific debugging is indispensable). However, that is only true for beginner/intermediate level programmers; most experienced programmers will already be using many of the techniques presented here. And I have to agree with some of the other reviewers - the book is a little off-topic at times.
   
   Overall, a good read for inexperienced programmers who want to gain a better undertsanding of the techniques used in debugging.

2. Interesting possibilities raised with new tools

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 2006

   A fair bit about general software engineering, which I considered a bit off-topic. However, there is fairly rigorous coverage of debugging techniques, and a thorough review of the state of the art in debugging tools.