Press releases

The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse—New from No Starch Press: The Authoritative Guide to Debugging with Popular Open Source Tools

Press release: September 9, 2008

The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse San Francisco, CA—Debugging, the demanding process of finding and fixing programming errors, is fundamental to successful software development. But even many experienced programmers find debugging a challenge.

The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse (No Starch Press, September 2008, 280 pp, ISBN 9781593271749) teaches readers how to effectively use the three most popular open source debugging tools: GDB, DDD, and Eclipse. The text-command based GDB (the GNU Project Debugger) is included with most Linux distributions. DDD is a popular GUI front end for GDB, while Eclipse provides a complete integrated development environment.

The Art of Debugging offers readers specific advice for debugging with each tool and explains general debugging strategies. Real world examples of coding errors help to clarify the authors' guiding principles, and readers will quickly understand why their programs crash or throw exceptions.

The authors are well-known for their popular online debugging tutorials, and a printed book is long overdue. According to No Starch Press publisher Bill Pollock, "Programmers are desperate for a book devoted to debugging, particularly with GDB and DDD. Finally, the wait is over. No more debugging by hand."

In the book, readers learn how to:

  • Inspect variables and data structures
  • Understand segmentation faults and core dumps
  • Use features like catchpoints, convenience variables, and artificial arrays
  • Avoid common debugging pitfalls
  • Prevent errors in the first place by making the best usage of editors, compilers, and static code checkers

The book also includes coverage of advanced topics like thread, client-server, GUI, and parallel programming. Whether readers dread the thought of debugging programs or simply want to improve their current debugging efforts, they'll find a valuable ally in The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse.

For a review copy or more information please email nostarchpr@oreilly.com. Please include your delivery address and contact information.

About the Authors
Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at UC Davis, is the author of several popular public-domain software packages and online tutorials.

Peter Jay Salzman received his doctorate in theoretical physics at UC Davis and founded the Linux Users Group of Davis. He is currently a programmer with a Wall Street financial firm.

Additional Resources
Chapter 1: "Some Preliminaries for Beginners and Pros" (PDF)
Table of contents overview
Detailed table of contents (PDF)
Index (PDF)
Large cover image

The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD, and Eclipse
by Norman Matloff and Peter Jay Salzman
September 2008, 280 pp
ISBN 9781593271749, $39.95 USD
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000

Available in fine bookstores everywhere, from www.oreilly.com/nostarch, or directly from No Starch Press (http://www.nostarch.com/, orders@nostarch.com, 1-800-420-7240).

About No Starch Press
Founded in 1994, No Starch Press is one of the few remaining independent computer book publishers. We publish the finest in geek entertainment—unique books on technology, with a focus on Open Source, security, hacking, programming, alternative operating systems, and LEGO. Our titles have personality, our authors are passionate, and our books tackle topics that people care about. See http://www.nostarch.com/ for more information and our complete online catalog. (And most No Starch Press books use RepKover, a lay-flat binding that won't snap shut.)

About O’Reilly

O’Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

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