BenchMe README for Visual Studio Code

A micro-benchmarking tool for developers with Live Programming aspects. Only supports JavaScript for now.

Disclaimer this is still in Development!

What the extension seeks to achieve

BenchIt aims to bring benchmarking into VSCode, making it easy for developers to micro-benchmark their JavaScript functions.

GIF HERE More Info Below:

Pre-release use

If you want to try this out now, before its published as a VSCode extension, you will need the following:

• Node
• NPM
• VSCode

Clone this repository somewhere and open it with VSCode.

• Run npm install that will install all the dependancies
• Run npm run watch which will compile all the Svelte pages
• Press F5 on the keyboard to run the extension inside VSCode or click Run and Start Debugging

You will now be able to use the extension in its current state, whilst debugging the extension.

Bugs

As BenchIt is still pre-release, if you find any bugs or issues with it please feel free to open an issue on this repo.

The extension itself is a bit inefficient at the moment, but that will be polished later after all the functionality is up to speed.

v0.5 Functionality

• Bencharmking isolated functions with visualised results
• Example Based declerations for a functions parameters
• Live function tracking (Any code changes update automatically)
• Recursive support
• Supports functions inside functions
• Benchmarking takes place on a different thread (Minimal performance impact)
• Simple Benchmarks do not officially support parameters. The functionality is there however does not produce reliable or fair benchmarks.
• Dynamic Benchmarks only support one parameter, which has to be of type Array. You can randomley generate an array instead of writing it out as an example.
• The Random Generation only generates an array of type Number

v0.5 Limitations

• Limited Example Based Programming
• Limited Error Handling
• Limited ES5 Support
• Does not support arrow functions
• Benchmarking not tested with promises/async functions yet

Check whats left to complete before v1.0 here

How to use it

• Open a .js file in VSCode
• Use the addCase VSCode command
• Enter in any functions name that is declared inside the currently open .js file.
• If the function takes in any parameters/or if you want to make this a dynamic benchmark you will have to declare some examples as exhibited here
• Once the function is registered, its now being tracked and saved by the extension. You can remove the function from the dock whenever you wish via the sidebar.
• Click Open Browser and you can now benchmark all your tracked Simple or Dynamic functions.

Syntax for Example Based Programming

/** mergeSort Example
 * @param {Array} arr
 * @type == Dynamic
 * @example arr == [1, 30, 4, 21, 100000,600]
 */
function mergeSort(arr){
    //code is here
};

You can also generate an Array of numbers
The code below generates an array with 2000 random Integers ranging from 0 - 10000

/** mergeSort Example
 * @param {Array} arr
 * @type == Dynamic
 * @example arr == "RandomInt 2000"
 */
function mergeSort(arr){
    //code is here
}

Development Instructions

1. Install npm dependacies
2. Run npm run watch to compile
3. Run the codebase with VSCode (F5), this should open a new VSCode instance
4. Open a JS File with that instance and start benchmarking!

Getting Started Script

Why not try and benchmark sorting algorithms in JS? Please check the repo's issues if this does not work correctly!

/** mergeSort Example
*@param {Array} arr
*@type == Dynamic
*@example arr == "RandomInt 500"
*/
function mergeSort(arr){
    const half = arr.length / 2
    if(arr.length < 2){
      return arr 
    }
    const left = arr.splice(0, half)
    function merge(left, right) {
        let arr = []
        while (left.length && right.length) {
             
            if (left[0] < right[0]) {
                arr.push(left.shift())  
            } else {
                arr.push(right.shift()) 
            }
        }
        return [ ...arr, ...left, ...right ]
    }
    return merge(mergeSort(left),mergeSort(arr))
}
/** timSort Example
* @param {Array} arr
* @type == Dynamic
* @example arr == "RandomInt 500"
*/
function timSort(arr){
    let sorted = arr.sort((a, b) => a - b));
    return sorted;
}
/**  bubbleSort Example
* @param {Array} arr
* @type == Dynamic
* @example arr == "RandomInt 500"
*/
function bubbleSort(arr){
    let len = arr.length;
    let swapped;
    do {
        swapped = false;
        for (let i = 0; i < len; i++) {
            if (arr[i] > arr[i + 1]) {
                let tmp = arr[i];
                arr[i] = arr[i + 1];
                arr[i + 1] = tmp;
                swapped = true;
            }
        }
    } while (swapped);
    return arr;
}

The output to expect should be something like this

The key functionality with Dynamic benchmarking is witnessing the speed of algorithms change as the data size increases

Extra information

The benchmarking functionality is built ontop of Benchmark.js (formally utilised in JSPerf).

It's all on you to ensure that you micro-benchmark correctly.

However... we do try to help you along the way.

For Instance when benchmarking the Dynamic type, the largest array declared (via the example based inputs) will be used for all the Dynamic functions within that benchmarking instance. Ensuring a constant workload through-out your benchmarks!

We combat dead code elimination on the back-end, thus heavily encourage benchmarking with functions that actually return something!