Re: Spawn support in pkgsrc tools - Google Summer of Code 2016

[Andreas Theodosiou <andreas%atheod.net@localhost>]

On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 02:36:30PM +0000, Andreas Theodosiou wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 02:35:20PM +0300, Aleksej Saushev wrote:
> >   Hello,
> >
> > Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost> writes:
> >
> > > On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 01:58:38AM +0000, Andreas Theodosiou wrote:
> > >> the tools mentioned in my original message. I will also spent time
> > >> reading code during the drafting of the proposal so perhaps the first
> > >> item can be allocated even less time.
> > >
> > > Oh, I didn't intend to urge you to cut down time estimates, I just
> > > wanted to point out that you should provide possible extensions.
> > > The time is hard to guess, as it highly depends on the source code of the
> > > tool you are converting - assuming you will be familiar with posix_spawn
> > > itself after the second or third tool.
> >
> > >> As far as performance evaluation goes, after a discussion with Aleksej
> > >> it is my opinion that instead of writing tests, testing use case
> > >> scenarios such as the time taken to build a package, or a set of
> > >> packages would offer greater insight into the impact of the code
> > >> changes. At this point I would like to ask the prefered method of
> > >> evaluating execution time in NetBSD. Would a sh script that uses time(1)
> > >> and then logs the output suffice? Should a specific program be written?
> > >
> > > A few builds and time(1) should be good enough for this, no specific
> > > program needs to be written, but you need to think about what tests
> > > exactly you want to run (and check how stable the timings are ...)
> >
> > Probably, it is useful to point explicitly that the stability of tests
> > like these is very subtle issue. It may demand a lot more work than
> > originally anticipated. ("Few" may easily grow to "few decades.")
> >
>
> I will plan to run several tests to investigate the stability issue. I
> will also consider allocating more time to the testing phase of the
> project to compensate for possible problems that may arise.
>
> > >> Possible extensions could be implementing posix_spawn in system(3) and in
> > >> shells/bash.
> > >
> > > Good, maybe you can find a few more like that? popen(3) maybe?
> >
> > Since we're talking about pkgsrc, I think, that it is useful to remind
> > that NetBSD is not the only operating system implementing posix_spawn.
> > This may give enough space to extend the scope.
> >
>
> It is possible to add investigating possible posix_spawn
> implementation in pkgsrc tools on other OS's such as FreeBSD as an
> extension exercise.
>
> >
> > --
> > HE CE3OH...
> >
>
> Best regards,
>
> Andreas

Greetings,

I am writing to let you know that I have submitted a draft of the
proposal via the GSOC web interface. It is also available at
http://www.atheod.net/GSOC2016/atheod_project_proposal.pdf.

As there is still some time until the deadline for subimission of the
final version of the proposal, I am open to suggestions and feeback.

Best regards,

Andreas