Monthly Archive for November, 2005

Java profiling with Eclipse

Published
by
jonh
on Thursday, November 24, 2005
in Code and Reviews
. 0 Comments

The latter part of last week profiling some Java code at work in order to ring every last usable CPU cycle out of it. I currently do all Java (and some C++) development in [Eclipse] which has an excellent debugger and a really nice interface. It’s also nice to have the same environment on OSX and Linux :)

The best tool for the job seems to be the [Eclipse Test and Performance Tools] which provide lots of profiling goodies.

My current setup is:

  • Eclipse 3.2
  • TPTP 4.0.1
  • Latest version of the Agent Controller

To use TPTP you need the Eclipse XSD and EMF plugins installed so install those first using the auto update function. The TPTP installation is pretty simple, download the zip of all the TPTP tools and unzip it into the plugins directory of Eclipse.

You also need to install the Agent Controller (don’t let the documentation fool you into thinking this is optional, cos it’s not). Unzip the Agent Controller to a directory and run the SetConfig.bat file in the bin directory. Just use all the default options. You can then run RAServer from the command line to start the agent controller.

Now you can start Eclipse, create a new run instance, set the options in the Profile tab of the run settings, and profile your ass off. Unfortunately the profiler eats memory as if it’s cheaper than chips so you’ll almost certainly have to increase the amount of memory the JVM is allowed to use to stop getting “Out Of Memory” errors.

To do this make sure you call eclipse like this:

eclipse.exe -vmargs -Xmx512M

more 4 news

Published
by
jonh
on Wednesday, November 16, 2005
in Rants
. 0 Comments

Ok so this is just the brain dump of a rant so bear with it.

I’ve just watched more 4 news’ report on the current [ICANN situation] (the entire website is completely funked at the time of writing probably due to the content of this post).

The news article was generally about the whole internet being controlled by a bunch of american toss-pieces rather than a non-profit organisation. That bit was great, but then they moved on to the subject of what will happen in the future, which involved the internet being used for everything. This then brought up the moral dilemma of privacy, and who do they see as the main culprit of this? Google.

Yup, each time you use Google they store your search to improve the page ranking system, though in the article they said it could be used for anything. So clearly the ‘expert’ isn’t quite as unbiased as you’d like. When you see companies like Microsoft that won’t let you use your operating system if you change a piece of hardware, companies like Google (who don’t seem to charge for anything) can only be good, and with a mission statement that says ‘Do no evil’ I’m not sure how they anyone could accuse them of being even remotely questionable.

Really shitty journalism like this is so bad for people that don’t know enough about the things in question to understand how biased the reporting is. And there I was thinking More4 was a ‘Adult’ information channel, when all it’s giving us is the kiddie version of the truth.

/rant end

[Googles Privacy Policy]

gigs gigs gigs

Published
by
jonh
on Monday, November 14, 2005
in News and Rants
. 0 Comments

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with lots of fun outings to things like London Irish giving Bath a beating, and seeing two gigs!

First up was Athlete’s visit to Colston Hall. I’ve never been to Colston Hall, and I don’t really think I’ll go back. First off I brought some beer, then I tried to go and sit down, but you can’t take beer into the hall :( Then when we do get inside the seat is 2.75 times too small for my ass. It wasn’t going well, the first support didn’t make it any better (but not any worse either), but the second support was really bad, including (among others): a drummer who only used 3 drums, a lead guitarist who played about 3 notes a minute and a roadie who spent more time on the stage than off during the per-song guitar changes.

Anyways eventually Athlete came on, they were far too loud, a little boring, but the light show was nice :)

Last night I went to see Nada Surf at the Fleece. It’s been ages since I’ve been there, but it didn’t take me long (with the extortionate beer prices) to remember it. The gig was pretty good, even if the support’s sound equipment sounded like it was going to explode through most of his songs!

jack in a box

Published
by
jonh
on Thursday, November 3, 2005
in News and Reviews
. 0 Comments

I went to see [Turin Brakes] on the weekend just passed, who were absolutely amazing, if you get the chance go and see them! I’ve put up some of the photo’s I took [here].

I’ve also been playing with [skype] this week, which works really well on my iBook as it has a built-in microphone :D

Oh and check out my [flickr pages]