Top all-time · #4031
TimDbg
Personal blog · timdbg.com/postsprogrammingsystemssecurity
TimDbg is a personal blog at timdbg.com about programming, systems and security. Since 2022, 19 different Hacker News readers have linked it 26 times, most often “Writing a Debugger from Scratch – DbgRs Part 1”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link TimDbg's posts on writing a debugger from scratch for Windows x86-64 in Rust, and on WinDbg scripting and the target model. Comments only cite these posts; none judge them.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The art and science of debugging. And other stuff like that. From a former developer on WinDbg and the VMware hypervisor.
Most-linked posts?
- Writing a Debugger from Scratch – DbgRs Part 17 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2023-02-14
- Recognizing Patterns in Memory (2022)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-11-25
- Snippy: An OSS Rust-Based AI Assistant with Eyes2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-04-21
- Run My Code (code injection on Windows)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-08-29
- Things I learned while writing an x86 emulator (2023)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-02-03
What Hacker News says?
How about snippy? https://www.timdbg.com/posts/snippy-assistant-with-eyes/
Comment linking /posts/snippy-assistant-with-eyes/
on “Ball: A ball that lives in your dock”Submitted Things I learned while writing an x86 emulator (2023) as a story · 353 points
HN discussionFor those interested in writing a debugger: There are a series of tutorials on how to write a debugger from scratch for Windows x86-64 using Rust [1]. Additionally, there is a book titled "Building a Debugger - Write a Native x64 Debugger From Scratch" by Sy Brand [2]. [^1]: https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch... [^2]: https://nostarch.com/building-a-debugger
Comment linking /posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-1/
on “Nnd – a TUI debugger alternative to GDB, LLDB”Submitted Writing a Debugger from Scratch – DbgRs Part 7 – Disassembly as a story · 54 points
HN discussionThis still exists? You can also use JavaScript to script/extend and there is a native code API too. Note: I do work at MSFT, I have used these capabilities but I’m not on the debugger team. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d... https://www.timdbg.com/posts/whats-the-target-model/ https://github.com/microsoft/WinDbg-Samples/tree/master
Comment linking /posts/whats-the-target-model/
on “Things you can do with a debugger but not with print debugging”Submitted Writing a Debugger from Scratch: Source and Symbols as a story · 25 points
HN discussionI feel like it's good to note since I missed it. This post is from Feb 13, 2023. He has up to 8 posts on this at this point which don't appear to be linked to from this post. I think linking to all of them would be a bit much, but they're all currently listed on his main page [1]. [1] https://www.timdbg.com/
Comment linking /
on “Writing a Debugger from Scratch”Submitted Recognizing Patterns in Memory (2022) as a story · 10 points
HN discussionPart-1 (Attaching to a Process): https://www.timdbg.com/posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch... Discussion for part-5 (Breakpoints): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37670938 (320 points | 57 days ago | 51 comments)
Comment linking /posts/writing-a-debugger-from-scratch-part-1/
on “Writing a Debugger from Scratch: Stacks”Submitted Debugger Lies: Stack Corruption as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing a Debugger from Scratch: Breakpoints as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Snippy: An OSS Rust-Based AI Assistant with Eyes as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Snippy: An AI Assistant with Eyes as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing a Debugger from Scratch – DbgRs Part 1 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing a Debugger from Scratch as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing a Debugger from Scratch – DbgRs Part 1 – Attaching to a Process as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing a Debugger from Scratch: Stacks as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Run My Code (code injection on Windows) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing a Debugger from Scratch as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The faker's guide to reading (x86) assembly language as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Code injection on Windows (2023) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Recognizing Patterns in Memory as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing Windows Debugger in Rust – Part 1 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Weird things I learned while writing an x86 emulator as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Recognizing Patterns in Memory as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Recognizing Patterns in Memory as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
