軟體開發的經驗告訴我們，軟體測試並沒有辦法確保軟體完全沒有問題存在。有時候在除錯與測試階段，程式開發人員會在軟體中插入額外的程式碼(Instrumentation Code)來收集所需資訊，這意味著將對軟體的效能產生一定程度的影響。所以通常軟體業界在軟體釋出前，就會移除這些Instrumentation Code。但是，從實際的經驗來看，總是會有錯誤在龐大的測試過程中殘存下來，然而，軟體進入使用階段之後，軟體本身的偵錯機制（非例外處理）早就被移除殆盡，除了少數不影響效能的 log 。

在許多實際的應用中，就算軟體已經正是上線，持續的軟體品質監控的需求，從來沒有消失。本研究提出了SoftMon，一個利用多核心架構來運行的軟體監測工具，可以有效的降低監測所需要的代價，減少監測行為對軟體的影響，以期能在軟體釋出運作後，持續監控軟體品質。SoftMon使用了Helper Thread的概念，利用閒置的運算資源運行監測行為，有效的將監控代價轉移到Helper Thread中，並且提供簡單的語言MCML(Multi-Core Monitoring Language)給使用者來描述監控的變數與事件，完全自動化程式碼的修改過程，借此達到SoftMon對使用者軟體的透明化與模組化。因此，SoftMon可以借由減少監控代價的方式，將品質監控延續到軟體使用階段，更可以在獲得一定的軟體品質後，快速的將Instrumentation Code自軟體中抽離。所有插入Instrumentation Code的行為，都是利用MCML撰寫，再透過SoftMon來運行，所以使用者可以輕易的保有不含任何Instrumentation Code的原始碼，只要不透過SoftMon修改程式碼即可。

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