Chapter 34. Debugging your application

I’ve recently gotten into electronics. I blame the Netduino, and later the .NET Gadgeteer and related microcontrollers for being the gateway drugs that got me into that. I’ve learned to connect basic circuits and use ICs, diodes, and so forth. I’m currently working to learn how to use transistors effectively. When the circuit works as intended, all is great. I haven’t let the magic blue smoke out of anything yet, but sometimes the circuit just doesn’t work as I thought it would. In those cases, I have to find ways to debug it.

Nothing makes you aware of your actual knowledge level more than debugging. Just as with electronics, many of our colleagues can design applications and write code, but the true test of knowledge comes when the code doesn’t work as intended, and they need to debug it.

Good debugging skills come only with experience and practice. If certification tests really wanted to judge knowledge, they would contain nothing but debugging questions. That said, you have to start somewhere, and knowing some basic techniques and tools to help you get started is important.

34.1. Debugging basics

34.2. Binding debugging

34.3. Troubleshooting network operations

34.4. Summary