Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Snap vs. Dump

It never occurred to me that I might need to expand a little on why, in debugging lingo, I refer to 'snapping' as opposed to 'dumping'. See this post for an example.

Imagine the following typical conversation, with a Microsoft Escalation Engineer. For those of you who don't know, a Microsoft Escalation Engineer is at the top of the food chain when it comes to getting to the root of a problem quickly, and reliably, on the Windows platform. They have something akin to super powers when it comes to debugging and I have the utmost respect for anyone in this position! Which makes it that much more bizarre...


"So, you know how to take a dump?", says the Microsoft Escalation Engineer.

"Sure! I've been taking dumps as long as I can remember. You want me to take one now?", I reply.

"Yes. Go ahead and take a dump for me, then upload it so I can review it. Once I get a chance to sift through the results I'll get back to you", explains the Microsoft Escalation Engineer.

We carry on for a few more minutes on the subject of dumping. Seriously.. Its only in retrospect that I cringe at how someone might take the conversation out of context.

Now, I'm not above a little snickering (even as writing this), but we've got to draw the line somewhere don't we?

It was after one such conversation that I began referring to them as 'snaps'. I probably even read it somewhere, but it sounds so much more, er...professional, than 'dump'.

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