This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club.
http://gotopia.tech/bookclub

Read the full transcription of the interview here
 (https://gotopia.tech/episodes/375) 
Sy Brand - Author of "Building a Debugger" and C++ Developer Advocate at Microsoft
Tim Misiak - Systems Engineer at Datadog and Co-Founder of Augmend

RESOURCES
Sy
https://bsky.app/profile/tartanllama.xyz
https://x.com/tartanllama
https://github.com/TartanLLama
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sy-brand-36520857
https://sybrand.ink
https://blog.tartanllama.xyz

Tim
https://bsky.app/profile/timdbg.com
https://x.com/timmisiak
https://github.com/timmisiak
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-misiak
https://www.timdbg.com

Links
https://dwarfstd.org
https://lldb.llvm.org
https://rr-project.org
https://undo.io

DESCRIPTION
Tim Misiak interviews Sy Brand about their book "Building a Debugger". Sy, who has a background in GPU compilers and debuggers, discusses how implementing a debugger offers profound insights into computer systems.

The conversation explores the unexpected complexities of debugging fundamentals like stack unwinding and code stepping. They examine how debugging interfaces have evolved and the challenges posed by backward compatibility and language evolution.

Sy highlights areas for future advancement in debugging, particularly time travel debugging for non-deterministic issues and better tools for debugging optimized code. Throughout the interview, both experts share fascinating technical details that reveal why debugger implementation serves as an excellent path to deeper understanding of operating systems and hardware.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Sy Brand • Building a Debugger
 (https://amzn.to/4cWWr84) Cathy O'Neil • Weapons of Math Destruction (https://amzn.to/42jYkba) 
Crossing Borders (https://www.buzzsprout.com/2529297/episodes/17682252) 


Crossing Borders is a podcast by Neema, a cross border payments platform that...



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Sy Brand discusses their book 'Building a Debugger' with Tim Misiak, exploring the complexities of debugger implementation. They cover technical challenges like stack unwinding, the ptrace system call interface, DWARF debug information format, and stepping through code. The conversation highlights how building debuggers teaches fundamental concepts about hardware, operating systems, and compilation. They compare Linux and Windows debugging approaches, discuss the evolution of debugging formats, and explore future directions including time travel debugging and optimized code debugging.

Building a Debugger • Sy Brand & Tim Misiak