Patterns of Software Diagnostics

First Fault

While preparing a seminar on Software Diagnostics¹¹⁴ we made a lot of notes and realized that a system of patterns, corresponding vocabulary and pattern language are needed for this discipline. Here patterns are supposed to be broad in nature and be different from patterns for specific artifacts such as memory dumps¹¹⁵ and software traces¹¹⁶. So the first pattern addresses a diagnostic encounter with a First Fault in comparison to subsequent faults where the problem becomes noticeable and diagnostic resources are allocated. Such faults should not be dismissed. Dan Skwire is a passionate advocate of first fault software problem solving and wrote a book: First Fault Software Problem Solving: A Guide for Engineers, Managers and Users¹¹⁷.

The following paper proposes distributed control flow reconstruction for first fault diagnosis: TraceBack: First Fault Diagnosis by Reconstruction of Distributed Control Flow¹¹⁸.

Software Diagnostics Services (former Memory Dump Analysis Services) uses patterns of abnormal software behavior for its first fault diagnostics that doesn't require any special instrumentation: Join Debugging Diagnostics Revolution!¹¹⁹

¹¹⁴ http://www.patterndiagnostics.com/Introduction-Software-Diagnostics-materials

¹¹⁵ http://www.dumpanalysis.org/blog/index.php/crash-dump-analysis-patterns/

¹¹⁶ http://www.dumpanalysis.org/blog/index.php/trace-analysis-patterns/

¹¹⁷ http://www.dumpanalysis.org/First+Fault+Software+Problem+Solving

¹¹⁸ http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~witchel/pubs/pldi05ayers.pdf

¹¹⁹ http://www.patterndiagnostics.com/debugging-diagnostics-revolution