@@ -24,11 +24,11 @@ As said earlier: keep it short, neat, and documented (code comments).
A checklist for bcc tool development:
1.**Research the topic landscape**. Learn the existing tools and metrics (incl. from /proc). Determine what real world problems exist and need solving. We have too many tools and metrics as it is, we don't need more "I guess that's useful" tools, we need more "ah-hah! I couldn't do this before!" tools. Consider asking other developers about your idea. Many of us can be found in IRC, in the #iovisor channel on irc.oftc.net. There's also the mailing list (see the README.md), and github for issues.
1.**Create a known workload for testing**. This might involving writing a 10 line C program, using a microbenchmark, or just improvising at the shell. If you don't know how to create a workload, learn! Figuring this out will provide invaluable context and details that you may have otherwise overlooked. Sometimes it's easy, and I'm able to just use dd(1) from /dev/urandom or a disk device to /dev/null. It lets me set the I/O size, count, and provides throughput statistics for cross-checking checking my tool output. But other times I need a micro-benchhark, or some C.
1.**Create a known workload for testing**. This might involving writing a 10 line C program, using a micro-benchmark, or just improvising at the shell. If you don't know how to create a workload, learn! Figuring this out will provide invaluable context and details that you may have otherwise overlooked. Sometimes it's easy, and I'm able to just use dd(1) from /dev/urandom or a disk device to /dev/null. It lets me set the I/O size, count, and provides throughput statistics for cross-checking checking my tool output. But other times I need a micro-benchmark, or some C.
1.**Write the tool to solve the problem and no more**. Unix philosophy: do one thing and do it well. netstat doesn't have an option to dump packets, tcpdump-style. They are two different tools.
1.**Check your tool correctly measures your known workload**. If possible, run a prime number of events (eg, 23) and check that the numbers match. Try other workload variations.
1.**Use other observability tools to perform a cross-check or sanity check**. Eg, imagine you write a PCI bus tool that shows current throughput is 28 Gbytes/sec. How could you sanity test that? Well, what PCI devices are there? Disks and network cards? Measure their throughput (iostat, nicstat, sar), and check if is in the ballpark of 28 Gbytes/sec (which would include PCI frame overheads). Ideally, your numbers match.
1.**Measure the overhead of the tool**. If you are running a microbenchmark, how much slower is it with the tool running. Is more CPU consumed? Try to determine the worst case: run the microbenchmark so that CPU headroom is exhausted, and then run the bcc tool. Can overhead be lowered?
1.**Measure the overhead of the tool**. If you are running a micro-benchmark, how much slower is it with the tool running. Is more CPU consumed? Try to determine the worst case: run the micro-benchmark so that CPU headroom is exhausted, and then run the bcc tool. Can overhead be lowered?
1.**Test again, and stress test**. You want to discover and fix all the bad things before others hit them.
1.**Consider command line options**. Should it have -p for filtering on a PID? -T for timestamps? -i for interval? See other tools for examples, and copy the style: the usage message should list example usage at the end. Remember to keep the tool doing one thing and doing it well. Also, if there's one option that seems to be the common case, perhaps it should just be the first argument and not need a switch (no -X). A special case of this is *stat tools, like iostat/vmstat/etc, where the convention is [interval [count]].
1.**Use pep8 to check Python style**: pep8 --show-source --ignore=E123,E125,E126,E127,E128,E302 filename . Note that it misses some things, like consistent usage, so you'll still need to double check your script.
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@@ -36,5 +36,6 @@ A checklist for bcc tool development:
1.**Read your example.txt file**. Does this sound too niche or convoluted? Are you spending too much time explaining caveats? These can be hints that perhaps you should fix your tool, or abandon it! Perhaps it better belongs as an /example, and not a tool. I've abandoned many tools at this stage.
1.**Write a man page**. Either ROFF (.8), markdown (.md), or plain text (.txt): so long as it documents the important sections, particularly columns (fields) and caveats. These go under man/man8. See the other examples. Include a section on overhead, and pull no punches. It's better for end users to know about high overhead beforehand, than to discover it the hard way. Also explain caveats. Don't assume those will be obvious to tool users.
1.**Read your man page**. For ROFF: nroff -man filename. Like before, this exercise is like saying something out loud. Does it sound too niche or convoluted? Again, hints that you might need to go back and fix things, or abandon it.
1.**Spell check your documentation**. Use a spell checker like aspell to check your document quality before committing.
