--- title: "Case Study: SmartInspect in the real world" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2010/8/2/case-study-smartinspect-in-the-real-world.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2010/8/2/case-study-smartinspect-in-the-real-world.html" published: "2010-08-02T15:02:31" updated: "2010-08-02T15:02:31" tags: ["Cool Tools", "review"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "as part of the last case study , I’ve also implemented another tool in our real world project – SmartInspect : a tracing tool. The developer had also given us this tool free of charge to do a case study with, which I…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Case Study: SmartInspect in the real world By Roy Osherove August 2, 2010 In [Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools), [review](https://osherove.com/blog/category/review) **Historical article** · Originally published August 2, 2010; technical details may be outdated. as part of [the last case study](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2010/08/02/case-study-cryptolicensing-cryptoobfuscator-in-the-real-world.aspx), I’ve also implemented another tool [in our real world project](http://typemock.com/lintpro) – [SmartInspect](http://www.gurock.com/smartinspect/): a tracing tool. The developer had also given us this tool free of charge to do a case study with, which I had promised to publish on my blog (good or bad!). As a startup company we’re trying to conserve cash, so this is a great tradeoff – we need good tools, and we can pay with publicity if they are great! (hear that, JetBrains?) Amazing tidbit: [I reviewed SmartInspect last time during 2006](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2006/05/15/SmartInspectReview.aspx), and it’s come a long way since then. - **EASY**: it was relatively easy to get going with [SmartInspect](http://www.gurock.com/smartinspect/). The object model is quite nice, and I really liked the fact they have a special api for various common types (LogImage, LogException etc..). each type gets logs with its unique properties, and is visible in the very nicely done UI trace.: ![SmartInspect Console](https://osherove.com/img/wb/1d4dd40c_www.gurock.com_images_smartinspect_tour_console_small.png) The UI allows creating custom filters in your own tabs and panes, and is pretty powerful, but I’ve foudn its usability factor to be less than adequate. It needs more usability work, and I haven’t had time to contact their support to let them know (sorry about making you find out this way!). It also has some bugs (some “errors” are not shown even if you filter to see all error types..) but overall it has been very good. The way we used it, is by using PostSharp aspects that weave custom tracing using SmartInspect in the the begin and end of each method. Otherwise you’d need to do it yourself. and I hate wasting my time that way. SmartInspect and PostSharp go together as nicely as burger and fris. Don’t leave home without them. - **Nice feature set**. It does. It did everything I needed it to do, including support for “rolling” log files, that get recycled after a specific size, allowing encryption, and more. my favorite part of **runtime view** of logs as they happen inside the UI console. no need to look at the files after something happens. you can see it scroll by in real time.  it even supports logging from multiple thread and processes, and then seeing the log stack for each thread and process separately. I have not needed that feature yet, but future plans will force me to use it. **Summary:** I have not regretted choosing this tool, and plan to continue using it it other projects as well. ## More in Cool Tools [All posts in Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools) - Jun 18, 2012 ### [\[Cool Tool\] Chocolatey for windows is what you will not live without in two years](https://osherove.com/blog/2012/6/18/cool-tool-chocolatey-for-windows-is-what-you-will-not-live-w.html) - Dec 14, 2011 ### [\[Cool Tool\] Checking Out VsVim](https://osherove.com/blog/2011/12/14/cool-tool-checking-out-vsvim.html) - Aug 2, 2010 ### [Case Study: CryptoLicensing + CryptoObfuscator in the real world](https://osherove.com/blog/2010/8/2/case-study-cryptolicensing-cryptoobfuscator-in-the-real-worl.html) - Apr 9, 2010 ### [Things to install on a new machine – revisited](https://osherove.com/blog/2010/4/9/things-to-install-on-a-new-machine-revisited.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/