TPTP User Experiences Profiling

Note that when you edit a page on the wiki, there is a checkbox you can click to be notified of updates to the page. I'm not 100% sure if it works but if it does, it will be a good way to avoid having to cc a mailing list whenever you update the wiki...

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This page discusses user types that we are hoping to solicit feedback regarding user experiences. In particular, we hope to get pointed feedback and make TPTP better for these classes of users.

J2SE

J2SE 5 and J2SE 6 are supported in TPTP by the new JVMTI interface while J2SE 1.4 and below are supported using the old JVMPI interface. The components of TPTP profiler that are evolving the most relate to the JVMTI profiling experience. If you don't know what version of Java you are using, please use java -version.

Ideal Candidate Criteria For This Survey

• Users of J2SE 5 and J2SE 6 JVMs
• Doesn't require third party's software
• Can work on single computer, doesn't require distributed environment. But requirement to presence of Internet connection isn't a problem
• Easy to deploy
• Isn't very specific application field. Purpose and simple use cases are understandable without special knowledge. Short time for familiarization
• Absence or minimum of native libraries
• Can be downloaded from CVS and built from scratch in Eclipse

Some discussion by Oliver follows:

Do we care about what host? If we think that there is going to be a bunch of bug fixing, then perhaps we want someone who is using the tptp reference platform. Intel, will this make it easier? I *think* that it would be better to have 4 beta users on one platform, rather than 4 beta users on 4 different platforms.

It seems to me that some of these (Easy to deploy, third party software, simple use cases, can be downloaded from CVS) are specified so that Intel can run the application at Intel (perhaps for debugging). Is that true?

Let me try to rephrase the criteria:

The tptp team is undertaking an effort to improve the user experience for the profiler. We are going to do that by working closely with some lead users. The lead users will use the tptp profiler and will be closely supported by the tptp team. The lead users will get usage (and bug) feedback to the tptp team, who will expedite the resolution of issues. The lead user would expect to get a number of deliveries of the profiler during the course of their usage. The lead user may be given prototypes to try. It is anticipated that tptp will work with a number of lead users. Our desire is to get an improved user experience into Gannymede.

Here are the characteristics of the ideal lead user.

• The lead user's application runs on the tptp reference platform (whatever that is: linux, jvm 1.5, etc)
• To make debugging and support simpler, the lead user's application can be easily executed by the tptp test team on their system (reference platform). This implies that there should not be a lot of external "strange" dependencies in the lead user's application, as the tptp team will not be able to easily recreate the lead user's environment.

If you would like to be a lead user, email Mikhail.Voronin@intel.com (Is that who?)

Profile on Server and Enabled mode Collection

A number of folks are trying to use TPTP to profile Tomcat and/or RCP applications and are launching/starting their app either from within the workbench or from a command line script. The summary of one user's initial experiences with the TPTP 4.4 profiler for a Tomcat based application are here

J2EE

J2EE profiling in TPTP is currently ramping a new resource. That person is gaining familarity with the codebase. We hope to document use cases here and solicit input in the future.