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Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch
From: |
Alan Mackenzie |
Subject: |
Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch |
Date: |
Tue, 7 Feb 2017 19:21:19 +0000 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.7.2 (2016-11-26) |
Hello, Dmitry.
On Tue, Feb 07, 2017 at 03:42:50 +0200, Dmitry Gutov wrote:
> Hey Alan,
> On 06.02.2017 21:24, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > The essence of comment-cache is scanning comments only in the forward
> > direction. This is impractical without a good cache. The syntax-ppss
> > cache is wholly inadequate here (and would be even if it worked in the
> > general case).
> How come the "alternative patch" works well, then?
Well, aside from the fact that it doesn't (IMAO), it is only consulted
relatively rarely, in certain cases of back_coment where the backward
scanning hits something it doesn't want to handle. The AP is marginally
slower than comment-cache. If such awkward comments were prominent in a
file, it would be noticeably slower. In comment-cache, the cache is
used for every back_comment.
> The only bugs you've outlined so far are related to narrowing and
> syntax table change, but not any static complex syntactic situations,
> which is where I would expect scanning direction to have an impact.
Those bugs are enough, aren't they? (forward-comment -1) etc., should
work correctly in any circumstances. There might be the sort of bugs
you're looking for, but I suspect not. The backward scanning code is
very complicated.
> > There's no sign of syntax-ppss being fixed. Bug #22983 has been open
> > for almost a year, and despite repeated requests from me, there has been
> > no movement on it.
> You didn't show any enthusiasm about the initial proposed fix, which was
> rather simple. Now we've had more discussions, and the bar for a
> solution has been raised. I'm thinking about it again. Let's not give up.
I wasn't enthusiastic about your proposed fix because I found it ugly.
> > Anyways, there are other problems with the "alternative patch". It
> > doesn't clear it's caches when syntax-table properties are applied to or
> > removed from a buffer. It doesn't clear its caches when a "literal
> > relevant" change is made to the current syntax table, or a different
> > syntax-table is made current.
> Tracking changes inside a syntax table is possible (at the expense of
> some performance, as usual), but kinda pointless, I think. Most issues
> related to that, if they ever come up, could be answered with "don't do
> that".
That sounds like you've decided you want to use syntax-ppss no matter
what, and the bugs this will cause will just be relabeled as features.
As I've said before, the aim should be for back_comment always to work.
> Tracking the used syntax table is also a problem which we need to solve
> for syntax-ppss. A good design could handle it and narrowing together.
You should now be able to see why I dislike syntax-ppss so much. As
well as being incompatible with narrowing (which should be sort of
fixable), there is an essential lack of cache invalidating (which would
only be fixable by a radically different design). There is no sign that
much thought was given to cache invalidation in the design of
syntax-ppss. This probably cannot be fixed, or if it can, will involve
lots of programming at the C level, and will slow Emacs down quite a
bit.
> > comment-cache handles these situations correctly - that's where its
> > perceived complexity scores.
> And it does that in a pretty inflexible way.
It works. Other ways (apart from M-nil (master with
open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start set to nil)) don't. The sort of
flexibility I recall you wanting is simply not possible in
comment-cache, though its role could be expanded for other uses which
need the literality of a position.
> > comment-cache has rewriten back_comment entirely, hence the
> > troublesome merge. It's no more difficult for maintainers than the
> > current version of Emacs.
> But surely it is more complex, with cache handling logic.
It's differently complicated. master's back_comment, which attempts to
scan comments backwards is more complicated than comment-cache's
back_comment (including its cacheing logic).
> > They shouldn't drift apart at all. But drifting apart is no worse a
> > problem than a single cache being wrong.
> Yes, it is worse. You have more code to debug. And comment-cache adds
> quite a bit of code.
How have you quantified "quite a bit"?
> > Arguing for complete abandonment is not constructive criticism.
> When an alternative approach is recommended, yes, it is.
There is nothing to indicate you've even looked at comment-cache. All
the criticisms you've made have been from a distance, based on rumour
(even if the source of that rumour has been me). These criticisms have
been entirely destructive. I repeat, you want comment-cache to be
wholly abandoned, apparently because you like syntax-ppss so much. The
alternative "recommended" approach has documented deficiencies, yet you
still advocate it.
> > I'm not saying the "alternative patch" couldn't be enhanced to do these
> > things properly, but it would then no longer be a 20-line patch.
> I think it would be. The enhancements you're referring to will most
> likely be implemented on the Lisp level, and they are needed anyway.
They can't be implemented at the Lisp level. The tools Emacs Lisp
provides for cache invalidation (basically,
before/after-change-functions) aren't up to the job.
> So the "speed up forward-comment" patch would still come out to 20 lines.
Well, if you get a decent bug fix involving, say a 700 line patch which
includes those 20 lines, I suppose you could still call it a 20 line
patch, somehow.
> > It would also likely be much slower.
> I wouldn't be so sure. A syntax table comparison, for instance, would be
> pretty cheap compared to what syntax-ppss does already.
Full syntax-table comparisons are slow, even when written in C. I tried
it back in December. CC Mode regularly switches syntax-tables. My
usual time-scroll function on xdisp.c ran at about half the speed when a
comparison was done at every set-syntax-table. The results had to be
cached, after which it ran at normal speed again.
--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, (continued)
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Eli Zaretskii, 2017/02/02
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Alan Mackenzie, 2017/02/02
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Dmitry Gutov, 2017/02/02
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Eli Zaretskii, 2017/02/03
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Alan Mackenzie, 2017/02/03
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Dmitry Gutov, 2017/02/03
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Alan Mackenzie, 2017/02/04
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Dmitry Gutov, 2017/02/05
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Alan Mackenzie, 2017/02/06
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Dmitry Gutov, 2017/02/06
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch,
Alan Mackenzie <=
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Dmitry Gutov, 2017/02/14
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Stefan Monnier, 2017/02/14
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Dmitry Gutov, 2017/02/21
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Stefan Monnier, 2017/02/21
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Dmitry Gutov, 2017/02/23
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Stefan Monnier, 2017/02/23
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Tom Tromey, 2017/02/24
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Alan Mackenzie, 2017/02/14
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Stefan Monnier, 2017/02/16
- Re: Bug #25608 and the comment-cache branch, Alan Mackenzie, 2017/02/18