GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 768817
libvala makes GNOME Builder unstable
Last modified: 2016-07-14 23:21:25 UTC
libvala is used by GNOME Builder to provide syntax analysis, but constantly cash when source code is re-analysed. I've haven't but Christian Herbert in Bug #757840, reports memory hungry and frequent crashing. This bug could go in two directions or both: 1) Add documentation to libvala in order to reduce potencial crashing due to incorrect or misunderstanding use. 2) Fix libvala to improve its usefulness to other projects, including avoid crashing
Making depends on Bug #757840, as a test bed for improvements.
I would like to see stuff move out of process in general, so I don't think we necessarily have to "fix libvala to be crash safe". That is a really hard thing to do in a compiler. Compilers in general are notorious for both leaking and causing a great deal of memory fragmentation. By moving them out of process we can handle both of those as normal operating procedure. This will have implications on how we design for IPC. Ideally we will be moving large, contiguous memory chunks around (such as a large GVariant). This is useful for things like the highlight index, autocompletion results, etc. We go through a lot of them in little time, so having a large contiguous memory chunk allows less pressure on the allocator, while also allowing for GVariant sub-slices efficiently. When we redo the completion engine, we'll probably start relying on GVariant for just this purpose (with the intention of moving everything out of the UI process). My hope is that we can keep Builder's UI memory footprint rather small and well contained, while the subprocesses get recycled as needed (and use cgroups to enforce mem/cpu/etc).