Software Developer and Performance Engineer
Archive for May, 2009
Week in Review – 30 May 2009
May 30th
Tools
- D-Link Unveils v2.0 Network Monitor Widget
- Sevone Honored with Product Innovation Award for Network Performance Management Solution
- New Veeam Monitor 4.0
Testing
Information
- Advanced Java Memory Analysis with JProbe White Paper
- How Shared Garbage Collector Works
- Memory Analysis Best Practices Within Eclipse
Why Performance Test
Jobs
Java SE 6 Update 14 Performance Improvements – One Not Free
May 29th
Java SE 6 Update 14 Performance Improvements – One Not Free
Sun has just released Java SE 6 Update 14 with some great performance improvements.
- Optimization Using Escape Analysis :
[-XX:+DoEscapeAnalysis]
HotSpot will look for objects that are created and reference by a single thread and omit allocation treating them like local variables. - Compressed Object Pointers :
[-XX:+UseCompressedOops]
Improves 64-bit JRE performance by compressing object references to 32 bits when the object heap is less than 32 GB. - Garbage First (G1) Garbage Collector :
[-XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:+UseG1GC]
A low pause, server style collector that is more predictable. - Improved TreeMap Iteration :
[-XX:+AggressiveOpts]
Improved iteration for frequent passes over TreeMaps when the option is turned on.
Release notes indicate though that to use the G1 garbage collector in production, a Java support contract must have been purchased. I guess Oracle is starting to make its mark on Sun.
Avoid Creating Performance Tests
May 26th
Most projects, big important ones, have a person or team assigned to test the application. These people must create and run hundreds of tests to verify the system. If the team is well organized and has sufficient resources, they probably have their tests recorded in some way to reduce their work load. This can be a great source of test data and code for the performance engineer. Instead of inventing everything needed for performance evaluation, all that is needed is some conversion code and perhaps a way to adapt the test code to the performance tool. The hundreds of tests are already captured in some way, you just need to create some method for making them usable. First look at how the tests are captured. Is it in XML, serialized objects, perhaps spreadsheets? A conversion program can be used to make the data they contain usable, or an adapter can be written that is able to read the files and extract the needed data. This work though tedious, will save tons of time that would have been spent creating tests. It also means that the testing group can continue their work of creating new tests, updating old ones, and fixing ones with problems. All that work can be reused and save a great deal of time for the performance engineer.
Companies Should Buy Developers $3000 Machines
May 21st
Why do companies give developers junk machines? Compared to hardware, software developers are quite expensive. A really nice PC that costs $3000 might sound like overkill for a $60k a year developer, but it only comes to 5% of their salary. A $5000 laptop for a developer who makes $100k per year is still only 5%. To get the most out of your developer investment, give them the best machine money can buy. If you give them a $1000 laptop, you will save money on hardware, but the developer will be sorely underutilized. The developer will spend most of their time waiting on tasks to finish or fighting problems on the machine so they get their work done. Giving a developer a cheap machine not only lessens their productivity, it also lowers their morale. Developers want to get code written, solve problems, and fix bugs as quickly as possible. Nothing frustrates them more than waiting on a slow machine to compile their code or run the newest version of a program. Just think how productive they can be with a machine they never have to wait on. A machine with more disk space, memory, and cpu power than they have ever had in their lives. Their productivity will go up, morale will go up, and the company will get a lot more out of its $60k to $100k investment than they ever dreamed.