The Challenge of Verifying Profiler Accuracy in Java Applications
By
todsacerdoti
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Summary
This article explores the fundamental challenge of verifying profiling accuracy in Java applications, particularly focusing on the observer effect in sampling profilers. It explains how the act of profiling itself alters program performance, making it difficult to determine whether a profile accurately reflects the program's behavior. The article questions whether there is any reliable way to work around this measurement paradox and know if a profile is truly accurate.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledIf you have been following the adventures of our hero over the last couple of years, you might remember that we can't really trust sampling profilers for Java, and it's even worse for Java's instrumentation-based profilers.
For sampling profilers, the so-called observer effect gets in the way: when we profile a program, the profiling itself can change the program's performance behavior.
This means we can't simply increase the sampling frequency to get a more accurate profile, because the sampling causes inaccuracies.
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