Building a Debugger • Sy Brand & Tim Misiak • GOTO 2025

Описание: This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club. #GOTOcon #GOTObookclub
http://gotopia.tech/bookclub

Read the full transcription of the interview here:
https://gotopia.tech/episodes/375

Sy Brand - Author of "Building a Debugger" and C++ Developer Advocate at Microsoft ‪@SyBrandPlusCats‬
Tim Misiak - Systems Engineer at Datadog and Co-Founder of Augmend ‪@timmisiak‬

RESOURCES
Sy
https://bsky.app/profile/tartanllama.xyz
https://mastodon.social/@TartanLlama
https://x.com/tartanllama
https://github.com/TartanLLama
https://stackoverflow.com/users/49616...
  / sy-brand-36520857  
https://sybrand.ink
https://blog.tartanllama.xyz

Tim
https://bsky.app/profile/timdbg.com
https://x.com/timmisiak
https://github.com/timmisiak
  / tim-misiak  
https://www.timdbg.com

Links
https://dwarfstd.org
https://lldb.llvm.org
https://rr-project.org
https://undo.io
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DESCRIPTION
Tim Misiak interviews Sy Brand about their book "Building a Debugger". Sy, who works as a Microsoft C++ developer advocate with a background in GPU compilers and debuggers, discusses how implementing a debugger offers profound insights into computer systems.

The conversation explores the unexpected complexities of debugging fundamentals like stack unwinding and code stepping, comparing approaches between Windows and Linux systems. They examine how debugging interfaces have evolved over time and the challenges posed by backward compatibility and language evolution.

Sy highlights areas for future advancement in debugging, particularly time travel debugging for non-deterministic issues and better tools for debugging optimized code. Throughout the interview, both experts share fascinating technical details that reveal why debugger implementation serves as an excellent path to deeper understanding of operating systems and hardware.

TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
00:46 How understanding systems unlocks better software
11:42 Rethink debugging: Fixing ptrace, DWARF & adapting to modern languages
21:03 Stepping through code: Unexpected complexity
32:38 The future of debugging
37:06 Outro

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Sy Brand • Building a Debugger • https://amzn.to/4cWWr84
Charles Humble • Professional Skills for Software Engineers • https://www.conissaunce.com/professio...
Cathy O'Neil • Weapons of Math Destruction • https://amzn.to/42jYkba
Jonathan B. Rosenberg • How Debuggers Work • https://amzn.to/3SnFHgv
Nora Sandler • Writing a C Compiler • https://amzn.to/3Z6SMhU

https://bsky.app/profile/gotocon.com
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#Debugger #Debugging #SystemsProgramming #Linux #X64 #X86 #MicroProcessor #StackUnwinding #WriteADebugger #UndoDB #LLDB #ptrace #DWARFstd #Cpp #Rustlang #Csharp #TodayInTech #SoftwareDevelopment #SoftwareEngineering #Programming #SyBrand #TimMisiak #BookClub

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