Performance Testing

I just upgraded my Eclipse IDE and installed the latest Test and Performance Tools Platform (TPTP) release. The only tricky part of the installation was installing the Agent Controller (available from from the TPTP download site). This is a separate install from the TPTP plugin and must be placed on your PATH.

TPTP application profiling is easy. Simply start your application in profiling mode, then start the profiler before you access application functionality you want to benchmark. I'm currently using the tool to identify memory and execution time bottlenecks. The TPTP utility makes it easy to sort on key statistics (like the memory footprint for an object class, or the total time spent executing various methods).

I find the method invocation information especially useful. Not only does the tool provide information on which calls are taking the longest, but it also provides details for who called the method and what supporting methods are called (along with the time spent in each). This makes it extremely easy to drill down in the application to find to true cause of the slowdown.

Discussion

I've read that the profiling tool included with NetBeans is very good. Has anyone used this? How does it compare?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Believe...

A recent reorg at my company left me with a new manager - and a different approach to software development than my team had been previously following.  Our new approach is one that I don’t necessarily agree with, but it led me to think about - and reevaluate -  those tenets of software development that I think are important and that I believe lead to increased quality and productivity. This post will consist of fairly high level discussions about how to organize code, teams, and projects - but contain very little actual code. Many of these ideas will not be my own.  They are mostly ideas I’ve learned from others and their willingness to share their experiences with me.  They are, however, ideas that I’ve practiced and hardened as I’ve worked to build my own ideal environment for delivering value through software . Many of these ideas I now take for granted as commonplace (even though they aren’t).  I felt a need to document them anyway - so people can unde...
Read more

More stuff to get excited about

Chrome OS I'm excited about Google's announcement to release what sounds like an ultra lightweight OS to basically surf the Internet. I'm hoping this device will allow me (and others) to breathe new life into old, underpowered laptops, allowing them to essentially work as netbooks. This could also open up new and inexpensive opportunities for schools to recycle or prolong the life of expensive computing equipment and expand horizons of their students. I've been watching the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) movement for some time and I see this as another avenue toward their goal. I don't share the optimism that this OS will somehow replace Windows. Sometimes you need extra horsepower and functionality. I edit a lot of photos and create some simple video, but the web tools I've tried to do either task can't hold a candle to the four-year-old version of Photoshop Elements I own. I'm not sure CPU intensive apps like this will port very well to the web....
Read more

A few quick notes

It's been a quiet few months. I haven't worked on too many things I've felt like writing about. That's not to say I haven't been busy. One thing I've been reading more about building great teams and delivering more to our customers. I'm just starting to read Creating Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney . Obvious from the title, this book outlines the approach Disney teaches all of it's Cast Members (employees) on how to be great leaders and provide their visitors with great experiences. I've been wanting to read this for some time and I'll be sure to write more as I work my way through it. Some related blog posts I've enjoyed recently are: The Duct Tape Programmer from Joel on Software where he reviews a chapter of the book Coders at Work . The post basically talks about doing the simplest thing possible to get something out the door and into people's hands. Amen to that! I've also been enjoyi...
Read more