Why YSlow, NewRelic, and Test Coverage are Important

November, 16th 2010

By: Ikin Wirawan

Does this sound familiar?
The web application is completed.
The problem is, when you try browsing on it, it feels slow.
There are no other users browsing the site except you and your partner.
The site is hosted on a VPS with 512MB of memory.
Is the problem with the hosting provider or with the software?

It's true that hosting has its own set of problems, but in this newsletter I want to focus on how entrepreneurs can make sure they get great software.
Entrepreneurs should demand at least these three things when they work with a software development company:

• That there is no warnings on locally-installed NewRelic
• That the automated test not only test the models & functionals, but also includes behavior testing; their coverage should reach a minimum 80%
• That the software achieve targets on all categories on YSlow measurement

There are a slew of other quality points that we have to make sure, but these three are very important.
We got this from our own share of experiences, where unwanted things happened when an entrepreneur sacrificed quality over time / cost constraints.
We want to make sure both entrepreneurs and software development companies to always think about these quality levels, even if it means more time / money investment necessary.