Debugging is, in general, a cumbersome and tiring task. The difficulty of software debugging varies greatly with the programming language used and the available tools, such as debuggers. Debuggers are software tools which enable the programmer to monitor the execution of a program, stop it, re-start it, run it in slow motion, change values in memory and even, in some cases, go back in time.
Generally, high-level programming languages, such as Java, make debugging easier, because they have features such as exception handling that make real sources of erratic behaviour easier to spot. In lower-level programming languages such as C or assembly, bugs may cause silent problems such as memory corruption, and it is often difficult to see where the initial problem happened; in those cases, sophisticated debugging tools may be needed.
For debugging electronic hardware (eg. computer hardware) as well as low-level software (eg. BIOSes, device drivers) and firmware, instruments such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers or in-circuit emulators (ICEs) are often used, alone or in combination. An ICE may perform many of the typical software debugger's tasks on low-level software and firmware.
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