Debugging is of central importance to successful software development, and yet many beginning programmers are unaware of the techniques they can use to reduce the time they spend finding and fixing programming errors. GDB, a popular open source debugger, allows a programmer to trace program execution line by line, set breakpoints, inspect variables, and look at what the program is doing at any given time. Using an assortment of real world coding errors "from simple typos to major logical blunders "The Art of Debugging with GDB and DDD discusses how to manage memory, understand core dumps, and trace programming errors to their root cause. The book covers topics other debugging books omit "such as threaded, server/client, GUI, and parallel programming "as well as how to avoid common debugging pitfalls. Readers also learn about techniques and tools they can use to prevent errors, saving themselves valuable time and effort.

“Hey, this thing really works!” So said one of our students, Andrew, after he made serious use of a debugging tool for the first time. He had learned about debugging tools three years earlier in his freshman programming courses, but he had dismissed them as just something to learn for the final exam. Now as a fourth-year student, Andrew’s professor urged him to stop using print statements for debugging and make use of formal debugging tools. To his delight and surprise, he found that he could greatly reduce his debugging time by making use of the proper tools.