Is stopwatch benchmarking acceptable?

Question

Does anyone ever use stopwatch benchmarking, or should a performance tool always be used? Are there any good free tools available for Java? What tools do you use?

Answer 1

I don't think stopwatch benchmarking is too horrible, but if you can get onto a Solaris or OS X machine you should check out DTrace. I've used it to get some great information about timing in my applications.