The Science of Debugging

I admit that I bought this book fully expecting to be"underwhelmed." Instead, I was pleasantly surprised asto how much this work had to offer.They begin the book with this interesting premise:"One of the groups that is likely to discount this book isthe system architects camp, although they are theones that are most likely to be aided by understanding theroot causes of bugs and how they can be avoided." Afterreading this (which appeared on page 6) I decided to markeach page that contained an important architectural-levelobservation or recommendation. By the end of the book,I had nearly 40 such pages identified!The work is well researched with good references andfootnotes. It is also rich with real-world examples ofhorror stories and debugging nightmares. I found myselffilling the margins with recollections of my own, similarexperiences.The book is not without faults. There seems to be a greatdeal of repetition and there were several points where Iwished the book had been more carefully edited. I didn'tagree with everything presented and I think they actuallygot a couple of things completely wrong. Finally,there is at least one puzzle presented where the authorschallenge you to "find the bug" where even their answer wasn't complete! [See page 307--an exercise for the reader.]The author's aim was to discuss debugging but the bookcontained as many Software Engineering observations asgeneral debugging tips. I believe that these generalobservations and recommendations strengthen the workconsiderably.Any college course in Software Engineering would benefitby including this book as required reading. Any projectlead organizing a new product development effort shouldtake an hour and skim though this book again (afteran initial, careful reading). Finally, any programmerwho wishes to build for debug-ability would do well toreview this work.The book's one sentence synopsis comes directly from theauthors (page 109) "One of the most critical (and mostoverlooked) aspects of debugging is to understand whybugs occur and where they come from." I agree. This book does a marvelous job to address that and much more.I highly recommend it.