This article in in PDF form so be aware of that. Here's a snippet that's indicative of the overall style and the points that Mickens makes: When you debug a distributed system or an OS kernel, you do it Texas-style. You gather some mean, stoic people, people who have seen things die, and you get some primitive tools, like a compass and a rucksack and a stick that’s pointed on one end, and you walk into the wilderness and you look for trouble, possibly while using chewing tobacco. As a systems hacker, you must be prepared to do savage things,...