At 05:33 PM 2003-08-11 -0400, Morbus Iff wrote:
Does debugging include optimization (since, theoretically, slow code == bad code)? I've been meaning for a while to look into speeding up AmphetaDesk, but don't really know what path to take (or whether there is more than one).
One minor point which I would make is that not all slow code is bad code - Some code is slow by design as a result of the work required. Then again, if we were wanting raw speed, it could be argued that we should be working in C ... :-)
I know you can do a bunch of stuff with Dprof (most notably, optimizing the first three or so must run routines), but what other optimization tools are available to you? How can I find out what's the biggest structure in memory? How can I find out what variables are being stored in memory (perhaps erroneously)? Etc., etc.
The size of structures in memory can be determined using the Devel::Size module by Dan Sugalski - http://search.cpan.org/author/DSUGAL/Devel-Size-0.58/Size.pm.
To determine what variables are defined in memory, your best bet is to walk the symbol table. with Padwalker - http://search.cpan.org/author/ROBIN/PadWalker-0.10/PadWalker.pm. Alternatively you can dump the symbol table using Devel::Symdump - http://search.cpan.org/author/EVO/Devel-PreProcessor-1999.0220/lib/Devel/PreProcessor.pm
Regards, Rob
Rob Casey Technical Manager Bluebottle :: Spam Free Email http://www.bluebottle.com
