One of the most important aspects of the development cycle is optimization. It is often the case that during the implementation of an algorithm, a programmer makes erroneous assumptions about its run-time behavior. These errors can lead to performance which differs in surprising ways from the expected output. The unfortunate tendency of programmers to optimize code before establishing run-time bottlenecks tends to exacerbate the problem.
Experienced programmers will thus often be heard repeating the famous mantra "Premature optimization is the root of all evil", coined by Sir Charles A. R. Hoare, the inventor of the Quick sort algorithm. Instead of optimizing during the initial implementation, it is generally better to perform an analysis of the run-time behaviour of the complete program, to determine what are the actual bottlenecks. In order to assist in this task, Magma provides a profiler, which gives the programmer a detailed breakdown of the time spent in a program. In this chapter, we provide an overview of how to use the profiler.