Bug Patterns in Java

Overview

Bug Patterns in Java lays out a methodology for diagnosing and debugging computer programs, presenting the act of debugging as an ideal application of the scientific method. Debugging is a task that is seldom presented explicitly. Skill in this area is entirely independent of other programming skills such as designing for extensibility and reuse. Eric Allen lays out a theory of debugging, and how it relates to the rest of the development cycle. In particular, he stresses the critical role of unit testing in effective debugging. At the same time, Allen argues that testing and debugging, while often conflated, are properly considered to be distinct tasks. Once this groundwork is laid, the second half of the book presents various "bug patterns" (recurring relationships between signaled errors and underlying bugs in a program) that occur frequently in computer programs. For each pattern, Allen discusses how to identify it, how to treat it, and how to prevent it. The more frequently bug patterns occur, the better they can be documented, diagnosed, and efficiently eliminated. The later chapters offer a handy checklist of potential problems and solutions, and a detailed Java developer's reference list of available Web sites, designer's tools, and books.

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