Efficiency of a one time debugging session.

Value stream mapping of a debugging session of a fast moving open source project.

• svn update: 3 min
  
• mvn install (downloads the world) [FAILURE]: 3 min
  
• mvn clean install (downloads the world) [FAILURE]: 3 min
  
• manualy clean the workspace (remove deleted files): 1 min
  
• mvn install (finishes downloading the world): 5 min
  
• mvn -DdownloadSources=true idea:idea (downloads the world II, the source return): 10 min
  
• start idea: 3 min
  
• open project inside idea: 5 min
  
• configure a newer JDK in idea: 3 min
  
• start the program in debugging mode: 30 sec
  
• add a breakpoint: 15 sec
  
• reproduce the problem: 15 sec
  
• find the bug: 15 sec
  
• mail the user: 1 min
  

Total time: 48 min 15 sec
Time effectively spent on the issue: 2 min 15 sec
Efficiency: 4.66%


YMMV. Done on an almost 3 years old laptop running Ubuntu (1.83GHz Dual core, 2G RAM, 320G disk).

(those timings are from memory, but they seem consistent with the time I used between my mails.

Potential conclusions:

• don't do random development on semi-complex open source projects ?
  
• use less complex toolkits/development environments. I usually just read the code in less, nano or gedit. Hint: if someone gives me a simple editor that allows me to navigate between classes, that fires up very quickly, by just reading a maven pom, that would be pretty cool. If that editor had a terminal, even better. Maybe it is time for me to revisit emacs and its ecb...
  

There was a time when firing IDEA was a joy. Is my machine too old ? Did I lose something?