[Haskell-cafe] SoC idea: interactive profiling

[Donnie Jones]

Hello Gergely,

2009/3/22 Patai Gergely <patai_gergely at fastmail.fm>:
>> Last Summer, I also proposed a Google SOC project for profiling,
>> called Parallel Profiling Support for GHC.  This project was denied
>> for the Google SOC mostly due to the scope of the project and the
>> concern that the project would take far longer than the Summer.
> Yes, I'm aware of that trap. However, I think the ideas I proposed
> (rather vaguely, I have to admit) could be handled in three months,
> especially since I can familiarise myself with the relevant parts of the
> rts before actual work starts, and the first part of the task doesn't
> even require significant changes, if any.
>
>> ThreadScope:
>> http://raintown.org/?page_id=132
> I know about that one, that's another reason why I wanted to explore the
> area of more user-friendly space profiling instead: it seems somewhat
> neglected. Of course that might be because people don't feel an urgent
> need for more powerful tools, but I can't tell that without asking the
> community.
>

I do agree that a visualizer would be useful for space profiling (and
all areas of profiling for that matter).

>> The EventLog framework (used by ThreadScope) is now available in the
>> GHC RTS ($GHC_ROOT/rts/eventlog) and has been committed to GHC HEAD.
> Thanks for the pointer, I'll check it out.
>
>> Just to reiterate, make sure that the scope of your project is
>> well-defined.  :)
> Of course I intend to list some specific subtasks in my proposal,
> preferably the kind that makes life much easier with minimal changes to
> the codebase. :)
>

Be sure to include a schedule too.  I think there was an example
Google SOC project to follow as a guideline.

>> If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
> I'll see if I have some after looking at the code. For the time being
> there's only the one I'd ask anyone: how do you think space profiling
> could be made more convenient?
>

As I said above, I do think a visualizer for space profiling would be
an improvement over the current log file output.  I'll let you know if
I think of some other suggestions.
--
Donnie Jones