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List:       quanta
Subject:    Re: [Quanta] Quanta and CPU/Memory consumption
From:       Eric Laffoon <eric () kdewebdev ! org>
Date:       2008-05-19 7:13:15
Message-ID: 200805190013.16393.eric () kdewebdev ! org
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On Sunday 18 May 2008 8:32:39 pm James Ellis wrote:
> Hi
>
> I'm not sure about anyone else but I find Quanta's CPU and memory usage to
> be pretty extreme, especially on startup. Out of all the KDE apps that I
> use it's the one that slows down the system the most, by a fair margin. To
> the point where there is a noticeable lag when typing this message between
> key stroked and the key appearing on the page.

And then there is the old standard about diagnostic information... A man goes 
to his doctor and says "I feel blue" the doctor says "take these pills". Of 
course not! Now on your system I see you're running... Hmmm? I've got GIGO 
here.
>
> It's most noticeable on startup when a project is being scanned - it's less
> of an issue with small projects which would point to a scaling issue. I
> regularly see CPU usage between 50 and 99% and memory usage generally
> outstrips Xorg which usually runs at 6% or so. Once Quanta has finished
> it's startup dance, system load returns to normal.
> Doing an strace on the process reveals what looks to be Quanta doing a stat
> on every file in the project.

One would think the people using Quanta would be crazy to put up with 
developers nuts enough to write a program that bad, and I'm sure I'm not 
alone in not seeing the same thing you are. I don't doubt you're seeing it 
but you are describing an anomoly under the apparent assumption I'm going to 
be seeing the same thing. You may as well ask about a movie I didn't see... 
Diagnostics requres data.
>
> So, I guess the big questions are
> - is this cpu and memory usage really needed?

Absolutely not! However that's not to say various factors could not cause 
isolated cases like you're describing and certainly without the ability to 
evalute the factors of that data I just have to hope it's something like 
you're running an old version where known bugs have been fixed or really huge 
files with very little RAM.

> - Does Quanta need to stat every file in the project on startup?

Quanta parses every file on load. That's a little different and more involved. 
It is essential to provide the services it offers. In all but the most 
extreme cases it should not cause resource issues. I'm not sure about the 
rest without looking at the code.

> - Couldn't it just read the XML project file and put a representation of
> that in the file tree? This would put the onus on a developer who makes
> major file changes to rescan the tree manually.

It does read the XML file. You're probably noting safety procedures to insure 
the file is valid. Without knowing specifics you probably have some other 
issue causing system load. The code you're referencing has been stable for 
years with who knows how many thousands or millions of users and it's been 
several years since I've seen any performance complaints like this. Those 
were related to parser bugs with small specific issues. Without knowing 
specifics I am sure that an operation like checking a file is very fast and 
you would have to have an uncharacteristicly huge number of files for that to 
be an issue.

> - Maybe there is an option to turn it off for startup ?

I would have to check with Andras. However unless your projects are massive or 
your system ancient it is likely there is another problem and without knowing 
the specifics there is too much to speculate on to offer a good answer.
>
> Thanks
> James
>
Occasionally people do bring up specific issues where unusual circumstances 
cause problems. Often other system issues cause problems, but we rely on our 
users to get us a reliable description and sometimes example files to 
recreate an anomoly and test.

-- 
Eric Laffoon
Project Lead - kdewebdev module
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