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10 May 2007 In this issue: - A Word with the Wise: Tools and System Performance with Corey Goldberg - What's Happening at StickyMinds.com - Featured Tool: DevTest - Outside the Toolbox: Retro Bluetooth Handset **************************************************************** ADVERTISEMENT: DevTest is the user-friendly tool for managing all of your QA testing. Create, plan, assign, and execute tests all from within a single application. Defect tracking integration allows users to submit and regress defects from one interface. For more information or to download a free 30-day trial, visit http://www.techexcel.com/Formwise/qinfo.asp?BSWdtb **************************************************************** A Word with the Wise: Tools and System Performance with Corey Goldberg by Joseph McAllister Corey Goldberg is a Boston-based software engineer who focuses on performance engineering and tool development. He also contributes to open source projects and has developed some of his own, such as WebInject. I spoke with him earlier this year about his passion for the craft of software tools. Joseph McAllister: What makes you passionate about performance test tools? Corey Goldberg: I am passionate about system performance, so tools are an integral part of that. Performance is an interesting and diverse space. It touches technology in so many ways, and the skill set it requires allows me to be close to several different technical areas at once: development, testing, analysis, design, operations, etc. The thinking becomes pervasive, though. For example, last night I was standing in line for movie tickets, and all I could think about was how they could improve the queuing system to get better sales throughput. I regularly have conversations with my colleagues about service performance and input/output contention at our local burrito joint. JM: Is there a particular type of performance tool that is more "fun" to use? Is there a type that tends to offer more results? CG: The various types of tools all work together to form your full tool set or test suite. They all have their own fun parts. Load generation can be complex, as it involves software development alongside workload modeling. But it is also the fun part where you get to slam load through a system and watch it react. The most satisfying tools to build are analysis and monitoring tools, especially tools with real-time monitoring and graphing. This enables you to look inside your test runs or production system and actually see what is happening in real time. Complex data sets and metrics collected from deep within a system are transformed into informative graphs as things happen. That is pretty exciting to work with. JM: Is there a clear division between the commercial tools you've used and the tools you've written? Do you prefer one or the other? CG: Yes and no. First, for terminology, I like to think of things in terms of proprietary vs. free tools. Proprietary tools tend to force you into a certain pattern of use and often don't provide the flexibility to change or extend them in ways you might want. Lately I have been building a lot of my own tools that work alongside some commercial tools. I recently developed a reporting and analysis suite that replaced the analytics in a commercial tool we were using. Commercial tools also offer some rich features that are sometimes not feasible to re-create in a reasonable amount of time. So you have to remember that building your own tools is only worthwhile if it is cost effective. JM: Describe your open source test tool, WebInject. CG: WebInject is a test tool that I developed in Perl that is used for functional testing of Web application/services and ad-hoc monitoring of HTTP response times. It can run as its own GUI application with real-time graphing capabilities or can be integrated as a plug-in with other tools. I was doing this type of stuff in various scripts for years, so I packaged a lot of it together and made a more generic interface that can be used across a variety of projects. I thought others might be interested in it, so I setup a SourceForge project and released it in January 2004. The basic concept is that you define test cases in XML files that are fed through WebInject and executed against your system under test. WebInject provides a basic harness/framework that includes HTTP transport, parsing, cookie handling, authentication, SSL, etc. It gives you real-time response timing as well as functional verification using regex-based content verification and HTTP status codes. I spend all of my time on newer tools these days, but I still keep on top of WebInject enough to facilitate others' using it and posting patches/updates to it. Other test tools have progressed a lot in the past few years, so I am sure there are lots of new options for doing this type of testing. Oddly, WebInject has become somewhat entrenched in monitoring systems. Most of the users lately seem to be people running Nagios (an open source monitoring system) that need an intelligent Web plug-in/agent. JM: What is your favorite element of creating and distributing an open source software tool? CG: Community feedback feels really good. I like sharing and collaborating. The feedback is also tremendously useful in terms of discovering bugs and offering suggestions, advice, or even patches of working code. I care about my craft, and I realize the only way to advance is through open collaboration. I am also pretty influenced by the free software movement and do some volunteer work with the GNU Project. I have some core beliefs about the ethics of software freedom. Creating and distributing my own GPL-licensed software is my own little way to help that cause. For more about Corey and WebInject, visit http://www.stickyminds.com/CoreyGoldberg. What sort of questions about software tools and the software development lifecycle would you like to see answered by software experts? Email me at jmcallister@sqe.com. **************************************************************** Your Search for the Best Is Over . . . 2007 Spring-Summer Software Training is here! Software Quality Engineering provides the widest selection of specialized training courses. All courses are based on the latest industry practices and updated regularly to reflect current technologies, trends, and issues. For more information, Visit http://www.sqe.com/Training **************************************************************** What's Happening at StickyMinds.com Point your ears toward STAREAST 2007! The STAREAST 2007 podcast series offers interviews with some of the expert speakers who will be delivering keynote presentations at next week's STAREAST 2007 conference in Orlando, FL. Visit http://www.stickyminds.com/podcasts to learn more. While you're there, be sure to check out the other StickyMinds.com podcast series, The StickyMinds SoundByte and Gray Matters, and subscribe to the podcasts using iTunes or any other podcast aggregator using the feed links on the podcast page. Not enough time for training? Take the free Online eLearning Demo! Experience interactive lessons in a multimedia format delivered right to your desktop. Demo users can register today and receive 10 EXTRA days of training! Get started today!--> http://sqe.com/go?eMTDTL03 **************************************************************** Featured Tool: DevTest Vendor: TechExcel, Inc. Contact: 3675 Mt. Diablo Blvd, Suite 200 Lafayette, CA 94549 USA Phone: 800-439-7782 Fax: 925-831-3991 Tool URL: http://www.techexcel.com/Formwise/qinfo.asp?BSWdtb Description: DevTest is the user-friendly tool for managing all of your QA testing. Create, plan, assign, and execute tests all from within a single application. Defect tracking integration allows users to submit and regress defects from one interface. For more information or to download a free 30-day trial, visit http://www.techexcel.com/Formwise/qinfo.asp?BSWdtb **************************************************************** Outside the Toolbox: Retro Bluetooth Handset Because retro will be just as hip tomorrow as it was yesterday, someone has created a bluetooth cell phone attachment that looks like a traditional phone handset. No longer will you be that person with the unremarkable bluetooth earpiece who people stare at while thinking, "Is she talking to herself?" Now they can stare at you and think, "Why is she carrying around a disconnected phone handset?" To go back to the future with the retro bluetooth handset, visit http://www.stickyminds.com/RetroBluetoothHandset. Know of any fun tools, toys, or other items that might be slightly outside the software development toolbox? Tell us about them by sending an email to jmcallister@sqe.com. **************************************************************** ADVERTISEMENT: Better Software Conference & EXPO 2007 - Coming to Vegas Become a more informed software professional with an outward customer-focused view of development. Covering development lifecycle practices, the Better Software Conference & EXPO explores the latest trends in agile and plan-driven development approaches. http://www.sqe.com/go?bsce07el **************************************************************** Sticky ToolLook is an extension of StickyMinds.com and Better Software magazine--and a reminder that your "online resource for building better software" is just a click away at http://www.stickyminds.com. _________________________________________________ Subscriber Services You are receiving this issue of Sticky ToolLook as part of your StickyMinds.com membership, Better Software magazine subscription, or Sticky ToolLook subscription. We hope this publication will be a useful and enjoyable benefit. To change your email address or update your preferences, go to http://www.stickyminds.com/eletters.asp?fx=change. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.stickyminds.com/eletters.asp?fx=unsub. 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