While we're on the topic of simple debugging tools. One I find I use all the time is top. Not classically a debugging tool but it sure solves a debugging prob

While we're on the topic of simple debugging tools. One I find I use all the time is top. Not classically a debugging tool but it sure solves a debugging problem and I find myself using it very often to check CPU and memory usage. On the topic of more sophisticated debugging tools I like valgrind and Google's gperftools. These are definitely more difficult to use but I recommend not giving up on them because the pay off is huge. The trick is a) knowing how to run these tools and b) knowing how to read and understand the output. Both can be achieved through practice and RTFM.