comp.software-eng archive file "blurb/PurePulse" last changed 9 Jul 1993 This file contains information on the following subjects. Numbers in column 1 count distinct messages with the corresponding subject. 1 Pure Pulse, Issue: April 1993 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From pulse@pure.com Fri Jul 9 09:03:19 1993 Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 18:13:06 -0700 Reply-To: pulse@pure.com From: pulse@pure.com (Pure Bimonthly Newsletter) To: pulse@pure.com Subject: Pure Pulse, Issue: April 1993 ============================================================= ====================== The Pure Pulse ======================= ====================== ======================= ====================== April 1993 ======================= ============================================================= o Introduction o New Products & Versions o Pure Talk mail digest o Tips on using Purify o Quote of the month o New Faces o Upcoming Pure Events o Background on Pure Software ================= Introduction ============================== Welcome to the first online issue of Pure Pulse. The Pulse is to help you get more value out of the Pure Software products you have purchased. The Pulse will keep you up to date on Pure's products and the company itself. We expect to produce 6 copies of the Pulse per year. If you have submissions or requests please send them to pulse@pure.com. ================= New Products and Versions ================= PURELINK PURELINK PURELINK PURELINK PURELINK PURELINK PureLink 1.0 In March, we announced PureLink, the world's first standalone incremental linker for SPARC's running SunOS 4.1.x. o PureLink reduces 20 minute links to 2 minute links. PureLink is plug-compatible with /bin/ld, and requires no environment or database. It operates by patching the executable from the previous link, which sharply reduces the input-output consumed in linking. Not only does this save time, but it conserves precious network bandwidth. The executable produced is completely compatible with debuggers such as dbx and gdb, and PureLink works with all of the leading C, C++, and Fortran compilers. o PureLink identifies link-time errors. PureLink provides detailed error diagnostics for link-time errors such as multiply-defined symbols and undefined symbols. PureLink's precise messages make fixing these inevitable errors much simpler, by providing the name of every file that contains a reference or definition. No more frustrating guesswork! o PureLink uses Simple Licensing. PureLink is Pure's first product to use Simple Licensing. Simple Licensing gets software deployed faster and used consistently. It's a trust-based license which does not require any administration daemons, license managers, network tokens, etc. You simply use the software you purchase. o PureLink installs in minutes. PureLink is as easy to use as Purify, our award winning run-time error and memory leak detection product. PureLink fits on one floppy disk (no fatware here). To incorporate it all you do is add the single word "purelink" to the link line of your makefile: 'purelink cc hello.o -lXt -lX11 -o a.out' o PureLink is shipping now. Pricing is $498 per license in a ten pack. Send email or call for a quotation for your group. o PureLink Quote. Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 17:57:36 Organization: Oracle Corp. From: Yeong C. Yang PureLink is AMAZING! It is blinkingly fast! PURIFY PURIFY PURIFY PURIFY PURIFY PURIFY PURIFY PURIFY Purify 2.0.2 Purify 2.0.2 has been released on Sun SPARCstations running SunOS 4.1.x. This release is available to all customers with current support contracts, and copies can be requested from upgrades@pure.com. Purify 2.0.2 features suppression caching which has speeded up some applications by a factor of two. PRODUCT X PRODUCT X PRODUCT X PRODUCT X PRODUCT X PRODUCT X Product X Pure Software will be announcing a third product at Xhibition in June. Sorry we can't say more until then - stay tuned. ================= Pure Talk mail digest ==================== talk@pure.com There is a Pure Talk mail digest, that is summarized into a once a week message of common technical questions and uncommon answers. If you'd like to subscribe send mail to talk@pure.com. ================= Tips on using Purify ====================== Using Purify_assert_is_readable() This one comes to us from John Reiser, at Mentor Graphics. Here's a quick-and-dirty hack that will allow Purify to detect when a constructor does not initialize all the members of an instance. Run the output of cfront through a filter before invoking the C compiler. (Many command-line compiler drivers provide "CC -F" for this purpose.) Immediately before each instance of the pattern "/^} return __0this ;$/" insert the line "Purify_assert_is_readable(__0this, sizeof(*__0this));". See the Purify 2.0 manual, p.190, for further explanation. The runtime Purify report includes the offset and size of any uninitialized areas within the constructed instance. Unfortunately, the member names are not available. Purify also complains about holes created by alignment constraints. Nevertheless, the hack has proved valuable in reporting UMR [Uninitialized Memory Read from the instance] earlier, and in reducing the amount of control flow that is necessary to get 100% coverage of data flow. Using chain-length to get an instance report Dr. X from company y discovered that using -chain-length=2 and calling Purify_all_allocated() from his code would give him a per-class report on how many instances were alive. This allowed him to decide which classes should get special purpose allocators. ================== Quote of the month ===================== Many of you have commented on the grins that the quotes in the Purify manual have generated. A quote that didn't make it in is: From: Al Guintu Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 greetings, you guys suck! why didn't you advertise more aggressively so that i didnt have to waste my time with malloc_verify? ;-> ================= New Faces ============================ In the last three months, we are pleased to be joined by Mark Saul, VP Sales, and Aki Fujimura, VP Engineering. Mark Saul comes from Auspex Systems, where, as Director of Western Area Sales, he built area sales from ten to forty million in less than two years. Mark was one of the first Auspex employees and is largely credited with Auspex's sales success. Mark holds BSEE and MSEE degrees from Stanford, and an MBA from Harvard. Mark says: "Pure has the momentum and products to become the world's leading software quality provider. I want to help every customer developing software deliver the highest quality product possible--so they can beat their competitors. "At my last company I drove sales from ten to forty million in two years--I intend to beat that at Pure." Aki Fujimura comes from Cadence Design Systems, one of the largest Unix ISV's in the world, where he was VP, Central Engineering and Information Services, leading a team of 185 people. He was a founding member of Tangent Systems in 1984, one of the constituent companies of Cadence, and has been with Tangent and Cadence since. Aki holds BSEE and MSEE degrees from MIT. Aki states: "Quality is the key to life for software businesses and organizations. Just as the semiconductor industry needed to transform itself to a zero defects culture twenty years ago, the software industry will be going through that maturing process during the remainder of this decade. "Pure Software is delivering the magic required for this transformation. "To me, nothing is more satisfying than to have a job whose definition of success is to serve all software businesses on earth by helping to make them better." ================= Upcoming Pure Events ====================== Pure will be exhibiting at 5 trade shows over the next two months. If you are there, please stop by and say hello. May 3-6 STAR (Software Test & Reliability) Monterey, CA May 11-13 SunWorld SF, CA May 25-27 Software Quality Week SF, CA June 9-11 Xhibition SJ, CA June 9 Quality Awareness Campaign Kickoff SJ, CA June 14-17 Design Automation Dallas, TX =============== Background on Pure Software ================= Quality. Time to Market. These are the two key issues for software developers. Pure Software was founded in 1990 to address these challenges. In January 1992 the Company released its first product, Purify. Purify quickly gain industry-wide recognition winning numerous outstanding product awards. In March 1993 the Company announced its second product, PureLink. The Company continues to grow rapidly. Currently there are approximately 50 employees developing, marketing, and selling a suite of products that address software quality. Pure Software is financed by Mayfield Fund and Merrill, Pickard, Anderson, & Eyre, two of the leading U.S. venture firms. Corporate Headquarters: Pure Software 1309 South Mary Sunnyvale, CA, 94087 408.720.1600 support@pure.com info@pure.com Federal Sales: Pure Software 2010 Corporate Ridge McLean VA 22102 703.749.1414 federal@pure.com European Sales Productivity Through Software Carrington Business Park Urmston, Manchester M31 4DD England (+44) 61 776 4499 support@pts.co.uk info@pts.co.uk