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Dtrace Review

GoogleTalksArchive · talk · Watch on YouTube

Testing, debugging & developer toolsOperating systems & kernelsCloud, DevOps & reliability

What it is

Bryan Cantrill's 2007 Google Tech Talk on DTrace, showing how dynamic tracing improves debugging of both development and live production systems. It includes a vivid war story about tracking down a problem on a Sun Ray server.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN regards it as a gem of a technical talk that tackles a fundamental debugging problem and shows a new technology solving it.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2013, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “I'm partial to Bryan Cantrill's Dtrace talk since it tackles a fundamental problem in software engineering and shows how to solve it using a new technology.”

    Tackles a fundamental software engineering problem and solves it with new technology.

    dmit, 2013-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: What's the best technical talk you've heard?”

  2. “Now you will prefer Solaris/BSD to Linux :)”

    Persuasive talk that makes Solaris and BSD look better than Linux.

    chubot, 2013-05 · Strong recommendation · in “Stripping kernel/uboot source to 10% for code reading”

  3. “this one about DTrace, from 2007, is a gem”

    Story of tracking down an awful GNOME applet killing a Sun Ray server.

    mwcampbell, 2016-10 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?”

  4. “The whole presentation is a nice and impressive dtrace showcase.”

    Nice and impressive DTrace showcase.

    qznc, 2013-05 · Recommendation · in “KTAP: A New Scripting Dynamic Tracing Tool For Linux”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: dtrace, debugging, observability, solaris, bryan cantrill

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