Hi Max,

   oops, I was being dense...

On Dec 7, 2014, at 5:14 AM, Max Leske <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
>> On 07 Dec 2014, at 04:19, Eliot Miranda <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Max,
> 
> Hi Eliot,
> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 1:43 AM, Max Leske <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 06 Dec 2014, at 04:37, Eliot Miranda <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 11:35 PM, Max Leske <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> > On 05 Dec 2014, at 08:02, Norbert Hartl <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> Am 04.12.2014 um 23:31 schrieb Thierry Goubier 
>>>>> >> <[email protected]>:
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Hi all,
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> I'm just wondering.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Would it work to have a package format based on Fuel?
>>>>> >>
>>>>> > I doubt it would work cross platform. I don't know how fuel serializes 
>>>>> > WideString, LargePositiveInteger, BoxedFloat64. These differ between 
>>>>> > smalltalk platforms. The source as string solves that. Strings are 
>>>>> > written as unicode string and numbers as certain number format etc.
>>>>> 
>>>>> True. Cross dialect loading isn’t something we encourage to do with Fuel.
>>>>> 
>>>>> @Thierry
>>>>> You said something about partial loading: that will never be possible 
>>>>> with Fuel because of its pickle format. To select any partial graph you 
>>>>> have to first read the entire file and rebuild the graph first (ok, you 
>>>>> don’t strictly have to build the graph but you still need to read the 
>>>>> entire file).
>>>> 
>>>> Hi Max, you misunderstand what partial loading means in this context.  I 
>>>> designed and implemented partial loading for the Parcel system in VW, and 
>>>> Fuel is essentially a clean reimplementation of parcels.  The idea is that 
>>>> one does indeed read the entire object graph, but then only the parts of 
>>>> the graph that mate with the current class hierarchy are installed, and 
>>>> the bits that don't fit are stored for later.  Why?  So that a component 
>>>> can define extensions on classes in components that may not be present.  
>>>> Why?  So that one can maintain a single logical component in a single 
>>>> package instead of decomposing it into independently loadable fragments.
>>> 
>>> Makes sense. It’s just that I often get asked if it is possible to read / 
>>> update only parts of a Fuel file, so I wanted to make it clear that that 
>>> can’t work.
>> 
>> Right, good point.  But is there a use case?  For example, in effect is 
>> there a difference between being able to patch a part of a Fuel file and 
>> loading that file into an image (possibly automatically), patching the 
>> object graph and saving a new version?  
> 
> Yes, performance seems to be the main use case. Fuel files of hundreds of MB 
> take a long time to load and save, even if you only change a single string. 
> One instance where this is relevant is the Moose model. They currently use 
> .mse files, which use a textual representation (if I’m not mistaken). Usman 
> asked me if Fuel were an option, especially for updating only parts of the 
> model.

Ah ok.  Then yes, I suspect Fuel will be faster, but that patching is more 
complex because it can't be done in a text editor.  How do they edit the .mse 
file?  IME text editors suck on large files.  What are the relative frequencies 
of writing, reading and editing these files?


>>>> Lets take an example like Fuel itself.  This may have specialised 
>>>> marshalling and unmarshalling extensions defined on may classes, some of 
>>>> which may be to do with the GUI.  If we have partial loading we can load 
>>>> Fuel into a headless image.  The extensions on the GUI classes will simply 
>>>> not be installed, *until* we load the GUI.  Hence Fuel does not have to be 
>>>> decomposed every time we factor the system into subcomponents.  Without 
>>>> partial loading Fuel must be decomposed into a series of fragments so that 
>>>> it can load that part that fits into the headless base, and we have to 
>>>> manage teh dependency to ensure the fragment that loads against the GUI is 
>>>> loaded when the GUI is loaded.  Worse still, if we cut the GUI into two 
>>>> (e.g. development vs deployment tools) we have to visit the Fuel GUI 
>>>> component (and potentially many other component) and decompose it into two 
>>>> pieces.  In practice this is extremely costly to maintain, verging on 
>>>> chaos.  With partial loading things are simple.
>>>> 
>>>> Perhaps I should have called it partial installation, but you get the 
>>>> idea.  
>>> 
>>> Thanks for the explanation.
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Norbert
>>>>> >
>>>>> >> Would that make loading faster?
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Does it already exist?
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Thanks,
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Thierry
>>>>> >
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> best,
>>>> Eliot
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> best,
>> Eliot
> 

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