dot.NET Profiler

Our latest and perhaps last build (Version 3.4.15) prior to release has been complemented with optional plugins to wide-spread tools in order to facilitate unit testing especially for a larger group of developers familiar with and attached to those tools:

• NUnit
• Resharper (See video)

These options have been added for extra convenience rather than out of necessity primarily because we believe that systematic unit testing, test automation and test-driven development are so important.

Why unit testing?

Unit testing helps you verify and validate your source code to see (and measure) whether (to what extent) its components suit their designed purposes and behave as expected.  The idea is to isolate each part of a program and show that the individual components are well-formed right from the outset. Unit tests minutely state the “contract specifications” of a piece of code as to what it is supposed to satisfy and thus afford several benefits:

• Find problems early in the development cycle
• Ensure that code reflects intended functions in spite of changes
• Test parts first to facilitate integration testing
• Document critical code unit by unit
• Prevent performance from deteriorating.

Unit testing for performance and bug trapping

For bug trapping create a test that replicates the bug, and then redesign your code accordingly. By adding the fix to your test suite you can ensure that the test case will always be checked throughout the entire development lifecycle. For continued performance assurance you can use the SpeedTrace API in order to trace the executed scenarios and to perform sanity checks making standard assumptions that the elapsed times are within bounds of the desired performance.

Unit testing in test automation enviroment for optimized lifecycle management
and QA-internalized development

Why test automation (TA)?

Unit testing within the SpeeedTrace Pro Test Auotmation (TA) environment is performed systematically in “zipper”-fashion parallel to the development process repeatedly unit by unit at short intervals (See diagram). It thus becomes an integral part of the TA and lends itself appreciably to optimizing lifecycle management and proactively internalizing QA into your entire development process.

Unit testing with SpeedTrace Pro

Of course, you can do all this with SpeedTrace Pro using a much wider array of features, functions and triggers. Nevertheless, we wanted users accustomed to these wide-spread unit testing tools to also benefit from SpeedTrace Pro’s more comprehensive approach to software diagnostics.

In the last entry I’ve touched upon the odds software developers face in view of a highly competitive market environment and how to overcome the dilemmas posed. Now I’d like to just highlight the advantages of integrating your profiling and tracing throughout the entire lifecycle of your application to achieve ultimate quality assurance. Please spare a moment to consider …

Optimize SW development right from the outset!

Streamline your developing process with SpeedTrace Pro to raise productivity and effectiveness by introducing quality management and software performance checks in the very early stages of development. Trim down your test phases and thereby minimize time for corrections. Shorten your development cycles without ungainly side-effects, achieve real competitive edge and increase your ROI.

Use SpeedTrace Pro – the sooner the better!

By proactively starting to profile your code in the initial stages and integrating your performance checks for every step in the development process, you will avoid the risk of dragging bugs and flaws throughout the project which may later cause stability issues. Build and raise your software architecture on a sound and stable foundation with SpeedTrace Pro. Identify performance issues and bottlenecks in no time and detect the flaws in your source code before they get a chance to become big sources of instability in the final stages.

Use SpeedTrace Pro – better late than never!

Even if you cannot manage to start profiling until the end of a development phase, SpeedTrace Pro’s super-fast trace engine is extremely apt to pinpoint your problem in next to no time. Its rich functionality (wide range of settings, views, filters, triggers, special features, etc.) will certainly help you to lay bare the complex processes that lead to it and finally enable you to drill down to the root causes in your code lines.

Version 3.4 cloud power expands diagnostics

Version 3.4 to be released shortly adds new cutting-edge functionality (test automation, remote/distributed tracing and profiling) essentially extending monitoring capabilities beyond the release phase into maintenance and support. It thus expands the diagnostics to the entire lifecycle of your application regardless of time or location, making it virtually ubiquitous on request.

Achieve competitive edge, integral quality management supreme customer satisfaction – with SpeedTrace Pro! Download SpeedTrace Pro 3.4 now!

Performance, speed and stability – Issue No. 1

In all fields of software development, consumer demands and immense competition are mounting pressures to increase performance, speed and stability at an accelerating pace. Increasingly realistic computer graphics, real-time rendition and stable flow scenarios require highly sophisticated computer hardware and software. Every millisecond counts! Any runtime lost can lead to jerky presentation, lags, loss of data or hung sessions.

Software quality in a competitive world

The development lifecycles of software are being forcibly narrowed under the growing pressures of highly competitive markets. Increasingly more sophisticated follow-up versions have to be released with shorter lifecycles. Whoever is first to release any software product, is apt to win the race. However, here comes the dilemma: Shortening lifecycles under pressure tend to lead to error-prone software. Consequently, a growing number of service packs have to be issued to correct imperfect versions. This in fact shows that the time to develop has actually been pushed into the support phase. Users are liable to become involuntary beta testers having to install one update after another …

Costs of error under pressure

Unaided and badly equipped software testers and developers might have indistinct hunches or vague ideas why their software does not behave as expected under certain circumstances. But they usually have an insufficient notion why, let alone where or how, so much memory space, capacity and time gets wasted on simple tasks and why things are not working out properly according to plan. This is also why a lot of time gets lost on trouble-shooting, bug-trapping, and futile attempts to resolve performance issues and memory leaks.

Resolve the dilemma of quality under pressure

The SpeedTrace concept provides software developers and testers with just the answers they have been looking for: Conclusive issue resolution by getting to the root on the basis of objective measurements (no intrusion!)  – performed in no time and at very little cost.

The key to competitive edge is integrated quality assurance and sound lifecycle management with a high-end profiler-tracer like SpeedTrace Pro.

Why not get a free trial period of SpeedTrace Pro Version 3.4 with test automation enabling you to trace and profile your software products and developments over the cloud!

Download SpeedTrace Pro 3.4 and apply for a trial period now!