Hey Josh,
Thanks for looking into that, I figured it could be a bit tricky! Good luck
with it.
I think you and Harbs were maybe leaning to towards Number[] and String[]
type declarations. I don't mind either way, but perhaps the Array. with
angle brackets approach that is used for Vectors could make it easier to
swap between typed Array and Vector if people consider refactoring (and
whatever IDE they're using won't support more automated changes). OTOH, the
first approach is definitely easier to type. You probably already thought
those things through though, I guess.
If you end up with a remote branch for your work on this at some point and
want someone to help with testing or anything like that, I'm in, just let
me know.
On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 2:26 AM Josh Tynjala <joshtynj...@apache.org> wrote:
> > I think your other proposal with Josh for the typed Arrays and their
> greater compile-time safety will be a better fit for many cases as well, so
> I hope that happens.
>
> I started working on typed arrays this week. It may be a while before I
> can merge, though. It's definitely more complex than private constructors
> and abstract classes.
>
> - Josh
>
> On 2019/06/12 04:21:18, Greg Dove <greg.d...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Harbs - just in reply to your specific questions:
> > As I mentioned elsewhere it is easy to have full speed index access and
> > also full speed pop() and unshift() methods
> > If you switch off the first 3 settings I outlined in the post titled
> > 'Language/Reflection improvements details' you will have that. Those
> > settings are switchable locally with doc directives as well. I will do a
> > full write-up this coming weekend for docs. Hopefully I can harvest a lot
> > of what I already wrote elsewhere for that.
> > BTW I switched TLF to use the legacy Vector-as-Array approach by
> default, I
> > am not sure what you want there, you could undo that if you prefer.
> >
> > Beyond the above mentioned approaches for (mainly index level)
> > optimization, I have a preference for two more approaches, but I'd rather
> > limit the overall number of options to be what people definitely need
> > instead of adding too many options (which could create confusion). I
> think
> > your other proposal with Josh for the typed Arrays and their greater
> > compile-time safety will be a better fit for many cases as well, so I
> hope
> > that happens. If I have time to help out in any way with that, I would be
> > happy to do so as well, because it sounds like something I would use a
> lot.
> > Anyhow, I do want to support more optimizations with this implementation.
> > Can you say what your main concerns would be for optimization? Is it
> mainly
> > for 'push' (and unshift) ? Those would be mine...
> >
> > I would personally like to see the following:
> >
> > 1. A global optimization setting that affects all instances in all code
> > including pre-built library code. This would avoid certain runtime checks
> > and would also result in a lighter implementation. This is something the
> > final application developer decides, not anything dictated by a library
> > developer (but a library developer could advertise their public swc as
> > being compatible/safe with this type of optimization). This approach
> could
> > include perhaps 2 levels: one to remove any code paths related to fixed
> > length Vectors (which I think you said you never used) for example. Then
> > another possibly removing all element level type-checking as another
> level.
> > Adding this should not be too difficult I think and would be determined
> via
> > a goog define (which might be driven by a compiler setting, I did not
> look
> > at how easy this is yet). The thing I like about this approach is that it
> > is not 'baked-in' to any instance and the application developer makes the
> > ultimate decision and owns the associated risk (as opposed to having it
> > imposed on them by a library developer, for example). I think the removal
> > of support for 'fixed' Vectors could probably be made to generate
> > (debug-only) errors if there is code that runs that sets fixed to true on
> > any Vector instance - to provide some reassurance of no side effects
> when
> > choosing this option.
> >
> > 2. Compilation scoped optimizations.
> > By 'compilation-scoped' I mean configurable in the same way as the
> > vector-index-check suppression: An over-arching config setting for the
> > current compilation that can be overridden locally with doc comment
> > directives. This affects code sites (or all current compilation scope if
> > set in the config) and not specific instances. I would hope this might be
> > the only other 'Vector' specific config option like this, simply to avoid
> > confusion with too many options.
> > So I personally think the important things here are the push and unshift
> > methods, because they're the ones that are also most often used in loops
> > when index level access or assignment is not being used (in the loop).
> But
> > I'm keen to hear more about what people want in case it's different to
> how
> > I think. And I will add support for what best represents the needs of the
> > community. While index level access is best for large loops (just as it
> is
> > for 'Array'), push could be preferred in small loops because it does not
> > require a 'get' for length to establish the upper bound of the loop or
> the
> > next acceptable index to set (for non-fixed Vectors). The optimization
> for
> > push in this case would be to bypass runtime typechecking and just do a
> > regular Array.push into the underlying Vector representation, which is
> > still actually an Array in terms of how javascript sees it. Adding this
> > option is easy also, but rather than just forging ahead with it, I am
> keen
> > to get input from others first.
> >
> > I consider that specific instance level optimizations (in general) are
> > 'dangerous' because even if the code is 'safe' when it is originally
> > written, subsequent changes to the overall codebase (possibly by
> different
> > developers) can mean that an instance ends up elsewhere in code where it
> > behaves differently from other instances of the same type. Code-site
> > optimizations could also create an unusual internal state for an
> instance,
> > but most often they should not, because the code site where the
> > optimization is used should be validated in terms of the optimization by
> > its original developer (e.g. no runtime type checking at a particular
> usage
> > site because it is never needed in the context of that code, for example)
> > and the behavior of the same instance elsewhere should be much less of a
> > risk.
> >
> > More feedback from you or anyone else is definitely welcome for what they
> > want to see for optimization options of the implementation. I'm sure I
> can
> > still find more ways to improve the implementation for speed as it is now
> > as well, I can think of a one thing I want to investigate further.
> > -Greg
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 1:54 AM Harbs <harbs.li...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Practical question for me is: How do we disable to Vector runtime
> > > checking? I was having trouble following the full discussion. My
> > > understanding was that there’s a compiler flag, but I’m not sure what
> it is.
> > >
> > > > On Jun 11, 2019, at 7:10 AM, Yishay Weiss <yishayj...@hotmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Language.js:868 [1] is
> > > >
> > > > if (elementType.indexOf('Vector.<') == 0) {
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ________________________________
> > > > From: Yishay Weiss <yishayj...@hotmail.com>
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2019 2:07:36 PM
> > > > To: dev@royale.apache.org
> > > > Subject: Problem with Vectors
> > > >
> > > > Hi Greg,
> > > >
> > > > I just updated Royale and I’m seeing that in our class FontLoader
> > > >
> > > > private var _fonts:Vector.<Font> = new Vector.<Font>();
> > > >
> > > > gets transpiled to
> > > >
> > > > this.com_printui_text_engine_FontLoader__fonts =
> > > org.apache.royale.utils.Language.Vector();
> > > >
> > > > Notice how the type isn’t given in Vector’s constructor. This
> results in
> > > a runtime error [1]. Any ideas?
> > > >
> > > > [1]
> > > >
> > > > TypeError: Cannot read property 'indexOf' of null
> > > > Watch
> > > > Call Stack
> > > > org.apache.royale.utils.Language.VectorSupport.vectorElementCoercion
> > > > Language.js:868
> > > > org.apache.royale.utils.Language.synthVector
> > > > Language.js:642
> > > > org.apache.royale.utils.Language.Vector
> > > > Language.js:685
> > > > com.printui.text.engine.FontLoader
> > > > FontLoader.js:24
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
