That's true, unfortunately. Even the good old "hello, world" program, known to virtually every C and C++ programmer in the world, can be considered to be buggy. Developing software means having to deal with defects; old ones, new ones, ones you created yourself, and those that others brought to life. Software developers debug programs for a living.

Hence, good debugging skills are a must-have. That said, it is regrettable that debugging is hardly taught in engineering schools. That's how the idea for this book was born.

The Developer's Guide to Debugging is a book for both professional software developers seeking to broaden their skills and students that want to learn the tricks of the trade from the ground up. With small examples and exercises it is well suited to accompany a CS course or lecture. At the same time it can be used as a reference guide to address problems as the need arises.

The first book to apply the wisdom of six disciplines - logic, mathematics, psychology, safety analysis, computer science, and engineering - to the problem of debugging.

The huge proliferation of security vulnerability exploits, worms, and viruses place an incredible drain on both cost and confidence for manufacturers and consumers. The release of trustworthy code requires a specific set of skills and techniques, but this information is often dispersed and decentralized, encrypted in its own jargon and terminology, and can take a colossal amount of time and data mining to find. ...

The Only Windows Server Resource You Need. The single most comprehensive and understandable book on the subject, Mastering Windows Server 2003 continues author Mark Minasi’s award-winning tradition of clear and comprehensive coverage of Microsoft’s Windows Server products. This book shows you how to plan, configure and install your network, keep it running its best, and fix it if it breaks. And you still get all the coverage you need for the Windows 2000 Server installations that remain part of your environment.

Welcome to Windows Architecture Training for Developers. This book presents the architectures and related services of the Microsoft® Windows® operating systems. By completing the lessons and associated exercises, you will acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to develop solutions for the Windows 95 and Windows NT® operating systems.
This book addresses the objectives of the Microsoft Windows Architecture I (70-160) and Microsoft Windows Architecture II (70-161) exams. This self-paced course provides topical content that supports the skills measured by these exams.

COM (Component Object Model) is Microsoft’s specification for building distributed applications that work across networks and the Internet. It is a highly complex and mysterious topic, which ties in to everything Microsoft is doing with Windows. In this book aimed at experienced programmers, Ash Rofail unlocks the secrets of programming COM, writing in the classic Mastering style. This is no theoretical treatise but a practical exploration of how to do real things with COM, including creating COM objects, working with the Registry, reusing components, and getting the most out of ActiveX controls. Includes coverage of DCOM and COM+, Microsoft’s latest version of the standard for Windows 2000.

An excellent successor to Hennessy and Patterson’s Computer Organization and Design, this book presents computer architecture and design as something quantitative that can be studied in the context of real running systems rather than in an abstract format. The concepts are again grounded in real machine architectures and many of the examples are contemporary architectures, such as PowerPC chips and Intel 80×86. Computer Architecture follows the same outline as its predecessor, but covers information in more depth, moving rapidly from introductory discussions to issues just shy of computer design research. The format again includes an excellent mix of exercises and historical background. This book is recommended for people with some experience in digital design–or people who have read and understood the authors’ first text.

Developing enterprise applications has traditionally been a long, painful, and expensive task because applications developers often have to reinvent the wheel by writing, from scratch, the entire infrastructure needed to scale business logic up to the enterprise level. That’s where COM+ comes in. It’s an advanced Component Object Model (COM) runtime environment that provides prefabricated solutions to many of these generic infrastructure problems. It’s like a toolkit full of prefabricated solutions that are always available to simplify the work of Microsoft enterprise application developers. UNDERSTANDING COM+, REVISED EDITION elaborates on this story for developers, technical managers, and anyone else who needs to understand the COM+ architecture and technologies. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Very good book for DCOM beginners. This book does a very good job of presenting DCOM for the developer that isn’t quite ready to dive into DCOM head first. I was honoured to work with such a great crew of writers. If you’re an advanced DCOM user, then place your order now for the upcoming DCOM Unleashed book by MCP.

A software testing survival guide for those who work in Internet time With Internet applications spreading like wildfire, the field of software testing is increasingly challenged by the brave new networked world of e-business. This book brings you up to speed on the technologies, testing concepts, and tools you'll need to run e-business applications on the Web. Written by Hung Nguyen, a coauthor of the bestselling software testing book of all time, Testing Computer Software, this new guide takes you to the next level, helping you apply your existing skills to the testing of B2B (Business-to-Business), B2C (Business-to-Consumer), and internal Web-based applications. You'll learn how to test transactions across networks, explore complex systems for errors, and work efficiently with the many components at play--from servers to browsers to protocols. Most importantly, you'll get detailed instructions on how to carry out specific test types along with case studies and error examples for each test.

A hands-on guide to testing techniques that deliver reliable software and systems. Testing even a simple system can quickly turn into a potentially infinite task. Faced with tight costs and schedules, testers need to have a toolkit of practical techniques combined with hands-on experience and the right strategies in order to complete a successful project. World-renowned testing expert Rex Black provides you with the proven methods and concepts that test professionals must know. He presents you with the fundamental techniques for testing and clearly shows you how to select and apply successful strategies to test a system with budget and time constraints.

Automated testing is a cornerstone of agile development. An effective testing strategy will deliver new functionality more aggressively, accelerate user feedback, and improve quality. However, for many developers, creating effective automated tests is a unique and unfamiliar challenge. xUnit Test Patterns is the definitive guide to writing automated tests using xUnit, the most popular unit testing framework in use today. Agile coach and test automation expert Gerard Meszaros describes 68 proven patterns for making tests easier to write, understand, and maintain. He then shows you how to make them more robust and repeatable--and far more cost-effective.

Software systems surround us. Software is a critical component in everything from the family car through electrical power systems to military equipment. As software plays an ever-increasing role in our lives and livelihoods, the quality of that software becomes more and more critical. However, our ability to deliver high-quality software has not kept up with those increasing demands. The economic fallout is enormous; the US economy alone is losing over US$50 billion per year due to software failures.

With software maintenance costs averaging 50% of total computing costs, it is necessary to have an effective maintenance program in place. Aging legacy systems, for example, pose an especially rough challenge as veteran programmers retire and their successors are left to figure out how the systems operate. This book explores program analyzers, reverse engineering tools, and reengineering tools in-depth and explains the best ways to deploy them. It also discusses using XML-based tools, the roles of software components, object technology, and metaprogramming in improving systems maintenance, as well as how to align software with business goals through strategic maintenance.