SDP 2009: .NET Debugging Tutorial

A few days I delivered a full-day session titled “Debugging .NET Applications” at the Sela Developer Practice. The session was packed and I was really happy to see lots of people interested in .NET debugging – this seems to be an area of incessant popularity.

I only had one day to deliver lots of material – I basically tried to cram the entire .NET Debugging course I teach at Sela into a single day. We started with debugging basics such as dump files and symbols – and considering the dozens of ways to capture a dump these days, even seasoned programmers are in need of a refreshment. Next, we talked about Visual Studio debugging, including Managed Debugging Assistants which are a great but often overlooked feature. Most of the day, however, was dedicated to the WinDbg + SOS duo, which I used to diagnose a couple of memory leaks, a deadlock, a crash, and other scenarios. At the very end I also had a little time to mention other tools, such as Process Explorer, Process Monitor, Application Compatibility Toolkit, Hawkeye, SOSEX, my own Wait Chain Traversal helper and others.

I thoroughly enjoyed the session, as always. If you attended the session (and even if you didn’t), you can download the code samples here. (Unfortunately, the presentations won’t be available online.)

[To view the conference recordings, some of which are already available, with three sessions freely accessible to everyone, including the 3-hour MVPs panel on life, the universe and everything, start here.]