If I Only Changed The Software, Why Is the Phone on Fire?

July 10, 2007

By Lisa Simone
ISBN: 0-7506-8218-3

Great title and a good read too, especially if you like stories from the trenches. Simone does more than just revive old ghosts. She brings out the debugging techniques in context. This storytelling-approach helps you remember the techniques. Even expert programmers with plenty of debugging background can read the book solely for its educational and entertainment value, possibly even picking up a few useful tips along the way. Debugging is still an art, not a science. Simone attempts to bring some rules and reason to programming. The narrative approach is used throughout, except for the appendix outline of debugging secrets. Many are common sense or ones usually picked up with experience but some may surprise you. And yes, one of the chapters is entitled If I Only Changed The Software, Why Is the Phone on Fire?

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.