Building Debugger Sy Brand

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Copenhagen 2025. #GOTOcon #GOTOcph https://gotocph.com Sy Brand - Author of "Building a Debugger" and C++ Staff Software Engineer at Fastly @SyBrandPlusCats ORIGINAL TALK TITLE How Debuggers Work RESOURCES https://bsky.app/profile/tartanllama.xyz https://mastodon.social/@TartanLlama https://x.com/tartanllama https://github.com/TartanLLama https://stackoverflow.com/users/496161/tartanllama https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sy-brand-36520857 https://sybrand.ink https://blog.tartanllama.xyz ABSTRACT Have you ever set a breakpoint and wondered "how does this work?" Sy will demystify the internal workings of debuggers, showing you what's under the hood of tools you use every day. You'll learn how debuggers step through code, inspect memory, call functions in the running program and more, giving you a deeper mastery of your debugger and an understanding of fundamental operating systems technologies. [...] TIMECODES 00:00 Intro 00:46 What kind of debuggers? 01:16 Agenda 01:46 Debug scenario architecture 03:22 Manipulating memory 06:09 Breakpoints 14:38 Watchpoints 17:13 Stepping 21:08 Stack unwinding 29:39 Reading a variable 35:12 Calling a function 41:02 Summary 41:24 Outro Download slides and read the full abstract here: https://gotocph.com/2025/sessions/3629 RECOMMENDED BOOKS Sy Brand • Building a Debugger • https://amzn.to/4cWWr84 Charles Humble • Professional Skills for Software Engineers • https://www.conissaunce.com/professional-skills-shortcut Cathy O'Neil • Weapons of Math Destruction • https://amzn.to/42jYkba Jonathan B. Rosenberg • How Debuggers Work • https://amzn.to/3SnFHgv Nora Sandler • Writing a C Compiler • https://amzn.to/3Z6SMhU https://bsky.app/profile/gotocon.com https://twitter.com/GOTOcon https://www.linkedin.com/company/goto- https://www.instagram.com/goto_con https://www.facebook.com/GOTOConferences #Debugger #Debugging #SystemsProgramming #Linux #X64 #X86 #MicroProcessor #StackUnwinding #WriteADebugger #ptrace #UndoDB #LLDB #ptrace #DWARFstd #Cpp #Rustlang #Csharp #TodayInTech #SoftwareDevelopment #SoftwareEngineering #Programming #SyBrand #GOTO CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUS Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/join Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket at https://gotopia.tech Sign up for updates and specials at https://gotopia.tech/newsletter SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL - new videos posted almost daily. https://www.youtube.com/user/GotoConferences/?sub_confirmation=1