Debugging and Profiling 101

One of the most important steps in the software development process is to detect and identify the origin of errors, so that they can be eliminated. These errors can include memory leaks, different kinds of exceptions, or even just business logic mistakes, and can be identified during the debugging process, using the proper debugging tools - debuggers.

Once the software is free from all the errors, the next step is profiling . This involves the use of other software tools, profilers, which can give information abour resource usage by the application. This tool helps determine the total percentage of resource use, for every part of the application code.

A good programming practice typically follows these four steps:

1. Debug the program, find all the runtime errors

2. Make the code right and error-free

3. Profile the code

4. Make the code faster and more efficient

Keep in mind that premature optimization is the root of all evil by Donald Knuth