WHY PROGRAMS FAIL: A Guide to Systematic Debugging

"Today every computer program written is also debugged, but debugging is not a widely studied or taught skill. Few books, beyond this one, present a systematic approach to finding and fixing programming errors."
—from the foreword by JAMES LARUS, Microsoft Research

WHY PROGRAMS FAIL is a book about bugs in computer programs, how to reproduce them, how to find them, and how to fix them such that they do not occur anymore. This book teaches a number of techniques that allow you to debug any program in a systematic, and sometimes even elegant way. Moreover, the techniques can widely be automated, which allows you to let your computer do most of the debugging.

Learn more about the book, its author, or its contents.

News

2012-09-03: I now offer a free Udacity Online Course on Debugging, which neatly complements the book and vice versa. Enjoy!

2009-12-02: The second edition is out, and the site has been updated.

2006-12-30: A Google preview of the book is now available, containing excerpts of all chapters.

2006-12-03: Arnoud Buzing writes in StickyMinds: "With Why Programs Fail, Andreas Zeller has written a most wonderful text on the topic of systematic debugging...This is a classic book that I will place on a shelf near my desk as a reference."

2006-10-23: All code examples of the book can now be downloaded as a single archive.

2006-08-24: John Lam of Dr. Dobbs writes: "This is a practical book where you find excellent discussions, everything from tracking defects to debugging. If you want to write better software, read this book."

2006-03-17: Why Programs Fail has won a Software Development Jolt Productivity Award! This is a great honor, and I am deeply grateful to the judges and organizers for this result. My editor, Tim Cox, has been able to attend the ceremony and accept the award.

2005-12-24: Greg Wilson of Dr. Dobbs reviews Why Programs Fail: "This well-written, copiously-illustrated book is, in many ways, a status report from the front lines...instead of high-level handwaving, we get a detailed look at what particular tools do, how, and (most importantly) why."

Get the book at Amazon.com · Amazon.de
Comments? Write to Andreas Zeller <zeller@whyprogramsfail.com>.