Python Screencast: Install/Setup "SST Web Test Framework" on Ubuntu 12.04

I uploaded a 5 minute video/screencast showing how to install and setup SST Web Test Framework on Ubuntu (Precise Pangolin 12.04).

I step through: creating a virtualenv, installing SST from PyPI, and creating a basic automated web test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpSvGmglZPI

the following steps are essentially a transcript of what I did...

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install system package dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv xvfb

create a "virtualenv":

$ virtualenv ENV

active the virtualenv:

$ cd ENV
$ source bin/activate
(ENV)$

* notice your prompt changed, signifying the virtualenv is active

install SST using `pip`:

(ENV)$ pip install sst

Now SST is installed. You can check the version of SST:

$ sst-run -V

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Codeswarm - Python Core Development Visualization

particle visualization of Python core development commits: Jan 1, 2010 - Mar 06, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQPuU_YtN8Q

data source is the commit log from cpython mercurial trunk:

$ hg clone http://hg.python.org/cpython

... trimmed to show development activity since Jan 1, 2010.

(images making up this video were rendered with: Codeswarm)

SST - Automated Web Page Profiling (Python)

SST - Web Test Framework: http://testutils.org/sst

The latest release of SST (0.2.0) adds the ability to capture HAR (HTTP Archive format) output for pageload performance tracing/profiling.

New SST doc section: Performance tracing with Browsermob Proxy (HAR)

The HAR format is based on JSON, and is used by tools that consume/produce data collected by monitoring HTTP communication. These files contain a log of HTTP client/server conversation and can be used for additional analysis of page load performance.

The capture is achieved by routing browser requests through BrowserMob Proxy, which records web page loads while your tests run. SST will launch the proxy and save output to .har files if you enable the `--browsermob` command line option. HAR files are saved in the results directory for each page load.

HAR files can be viewed/analyzed with various tools, such as `harviewer`:

• http://www.softwareishard.com/har/viewer/
• http://pcapperf.appspot.com/
• http://code.google.com/p/harviewer/

I created a screencast demo showing it all together:

Automated Web Page Profiling : SST + BrowserMob