May 2022 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Sockets not working under heavy VM load?
by Pavel Krivanek Oct. 3, 2023

Oct. 3, 2023

Hi, we have some performance issues with Glorp over P3 and, after some investigation, I have a theory that could explain it. And I would like to know your opinion if it is correct. To reproduce this issue, you can try something easy. Just create a process with normal or higher priority that will try to read something from a socket. And, in parallel, do in a separate thread an operation that takes all the processor time for several seconds. ```` [ 5 seconds wait. Time now traceCr. ZnClient new url: 'https://www.google.com'; get. Time now traceCr. ] forkAt: 60. [1000 timesRepeat: [ 10000 factorial ] ] timeToRun ```` (you may try a different safe server address) The processes run in parallel until the time when the first process tries to obtain data from the socket. Then it hangs and waits until finishing of the second process. My theory is that the VM socket plugin is able to receive incoming data from the connection and save it into the buffer. In the meantime, the reading process is waiting on the socket semaphore. But it looks like the plugin is not able to release the semaphore while the VM is actually doing something. It needs to wait until the VM has nothing useful to do, and then it is finally able to release the semaphores so Pharo processes are resumed and can start to read. Is my theory right? Cheers, -- Pavel

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Recommendation for password encryption?
by Mariano Martinez Peck Sept. 30, 2022

Sept. 30, 2022

Hi guys. Some time ago I asked about the best way to encrypt a password. Some of the recommendations I got was: 1) Generally for passwords you do not write a decrypt method for security purposes (eg you do not want people to be able to reverse engineer the encrypted password easily) 2) put a little salt 3) There is http://www.squeaksource.com/Cryptography/PasswordHashingFFI 4) I should not decrypt password but instead I should compare both encrypted versions to see if they are equal. My scenario is the following. I need to store database passwords in text files. So I don't want to let them as plain text. And while I understand 4), I think it's a different scenario than mine. I know that some database driver may allow you to directly send the encrypted password. But still...I have another similar scenario in which I have to store a password and then send it (unencrypted)...so I kind of really need a bi-directional encryption. Now..I would try to avoid having an external library + FFI. Any ideas what is the best thing I can do? And how could I solve 1) if I want bidirectional like in my case? Thanks in advance, -- Mariano http://marianopeck.wordpress.com

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Question about MethodDictionary in TraitedClass (methodDict/localMethodDict)
by Andrei Chis May 30, 2022

May 30, 2022

Hi, We were profiling the loading of code that uses many Traits. We saw something like this (this is a tally for `TraitedMetaclass>>#addAndClassifySelector:withMethod:inProtocol:`): [image: Screenshot 2022-05-11 at 17.17.37.png] >From what we saw in `TraitedMetaclass>>#addAndClassifySelector:withMethod:inProtocol:` a method is first added to `localMethodDict` and then it calls the super method that adds the selector to the `methodDict` of the actual class in `Behaviour>>addSelectorSilently:withMethod: `. Because of this we basically get an overhead as a method is added to two method dictionaries and adding a method to a MethodDictionary is slower, as it does operations like `flushCache` and `cachePragmas`. Should the `localMethodDict` also be an instance of MethodDictionary or could it be a simple dictionary? Cheers, Andrei

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[PR in need of Review] Redraw world on SDL_WINDOWEVENT_EXPOSED #11240
by Marcus Denker May 30, 2022

May 30, 2022

This PR needs a review: Redraw world on SDL_WINDOWEVENT_EXPOSED #11240 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11240

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This week (21/2022) on the Pharo Issue Tracker
by Marcus Denker May 30, 2022

May 30, 2022

This week we merged 27 PRs and fixed 23 Issues. Symbol/SelectorTable Improvements ================================ - Symbol-simpler-findInternedSelector #11281 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11281 - 11243-Symbol-classrebuildSelectorTable-hould-not-use-allInstancesDo #11244 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11244 - remove OneCharacterSymbols from Symbol #11247 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11247 Features ======== - Add rules for simplification of isNotNil ifTrue:, notNil ifTrue:ifFalse #11261 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11261 Fixes ====== - Pharo11-UFT8-Monticello #11239 fixes: Commits with ... (introduced by GH) in summary cannot be loaded back in Pharo #11226 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11239 Debugger ======== - Adding debuggerLayout in TStDebuggerExtensionLayout` to be able to choose the layout the debugger extension should have #376 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/376 - Fixing odd behaviour in debugger inspector filters #359 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/359 - Fixes context menu commands of the StDebugger stack. #373 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/373 - [cleanup] fix selector name: initalizeSelectedList #369 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/369 Cleanups ======== - 11245-Trivial-FinderUI-classsearchedTextListMaxSize-can-be-removed #11249 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11249 - 11255-OrderedCollection-adding-methods-remove-a-poppushTemp #11256 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11256 - [clean up] isLiteral and TestRunner method never call #11257 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11257 - Fixed issue 11210: Do not skip NativeArrayTest>>#testDoubleArraysHaveCorrectLayout #11260 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11260 - 10185-merge-ReSmalllintChecker-into-SmalllintManifestChecker #11219 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11219 Trivial Cleanups ================ - Cleanup IdentityTransform class>>#initialize #11289 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11289 - Cleanup: categorize ProcessLocalSlotTest #11288 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11288 - Cleanup: align #isTransparent and other #isXXX methods #11280 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11280 - Cleanup: #isCharacter should be in same "testing" category (not "acceâ¦ #11278 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11278 - Cleanup: small improvements for Webbrowser package #11283 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11283 - Cleanup Delay>>#isExpired #11269 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11269 - Cleanup: lint for ComputedSlotTest>>#testReadComputedSlotCompiled #11285 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11285 - Cleanup: remove unnecessary class #initialize comment #11292 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11292 - Cleanup: #isBlock should be in same "testing" category (not "accessing") #11277 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11277 - Properly categorize "is..." methods #11267 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11267 - Cleanup: small category cleanup in Path #11274 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11274 - #isResumable shoud be in "testing" or "private - testing" #11271 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11271 - Cleanup-DeadCode-05-20 #11250 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11250

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About Image Size Pharo9->Pharo11
by Marcus Denker May 20, 2022

May 20, 2022

Pharo9: 65,8 MB Pharo10: 57,4 MB Pharo11: 56,5 MB The space saving come from three things: 1) Code cleanup Pharo9-Pharo10 ========================= e.g. removal of support in Kernel and Compiler of old style blocks and bytecodes, to mention one smaller (in term of image size) but deep cleanup. Of course, we can do more here. There is still a lot of dead code (and duplicated things) in the image! 2) Global Literal Sharing =================== Literals are now, when the method is compiled, set to be read-only, recursively in the case of arrays. This allows us to unify (share one instance) not only in the same method, but globally over all methods. As the compiler can not do a global literal table when compiling a single method (too slow), this is implemented as an additional pass, called as part of the build process. If you load a lot of code, it might be an idea to do that as part of your build again: ImageCleaner shareLiterals 3) Improvement of code structure objects =============================== e.g, in Pharo10 we found two empty OrderedCollections per class that where not needed. Further work on this idea is where the improvement in Pharo11 comes from, we merged these three changes: - Class>>#classPool: empty dictionary for all classes, but not many define class vars #11172 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/issues/11172 - [Memory] sharedPools OrderedCollections waste memory #10957 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/issues/10957 - [Memory] AllProtocol uses a lot of memory #10963 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/issues/10963 The classPools/sharedPool improves the size of the bootstrapped image not to0 much as the boostrap creates classes with nil there, but for newly loaded code this will be more visible. This direction has some more fairly simple next steps: - [Memory] commentSourcePointer is not needed for MetaClasses https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/issues/10958 - [Memory] Every class and meta class has both a ProtocolOrganizer and a ClassOrganization #10959 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/issues/10959 ... and of course there are many more things to find with just looking a bit. (And it is interesting starting point to think about better language support for making long living but rarely changed data structures more memory efficient) If you want to get an impression of which classes use image space, "SpaceTally printSpaceAnalysis" prints a per-class analysis. Marcus

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This week (20/2022) on the Pharo Issue Tracker
by Marcus Denker May 20, 2022

May 20, 2022

We merged 10 PRs and closed 9 Issues: Image Size ========== - Reset SelectorTable on #cleanUp #11235 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11235 Clean Blocks ============ - CleanBlock-Hierachy-Cleanup #11225 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11225 - 11218-CleanBlocks-Compiler-should-not-change-the-outerCode-for-all-blocks-in-the-literals #11229 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11229 Fixes ===== - OneCharacterSymbols: Symbol allSymbols contains one-character symbols twice #11241 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11241 - Revert "FIX issue #10933: Scaled decimals comparison result depends on the number creation method" #11228 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11228 - Fix an issue where streaming client usage failed when the server set a connection close. #11214 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11214 - Porting fixes from Pharo 10 to Pharo 11 #11207 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11207 Forward port to Pharo11: Allow to serialize Memory File Systems #11116 #11122 Forward port Pharo11: Fix #isPrime when sent to 3. #11154 Cleanup ======= - 11230-ClassParser-Improve-Hierarchy-CDSharedVariableNodeCDSlotNode #11231 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11231 - Categorize-Uncategorized-IceTipSpPresenter #1585 https://github.com/pharo-vcs/iceberg/pull/1585

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PhEP submitted: String interpolation for Pharo
by Esteban Lorenzano May 19, 2022

May 19, 2022

Hello, There is a new PhEP (Pharo Enhancement Proposal) submitted titled: "String interpolation for Pharo" that requires the attention of the community: https://github.com/pharo-project/pheps/pull/9 Cheers! Esteban

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[Review needed] Symbol allSymbols contains one-character symbols twice #11242
by Marcus Denker May 19, 2022

May 19, 2022

Symbol allSymbols asBag occurrencesOf: #a allSymbols returns an array of all symbols. The reason it contains #a twice: There is OneCharacterSymbols. - it is initialized with: OneCharacterSymbols := (1 to: 256) collect: [ :i | (i - 1) asCharacter asSymbol]. the #asSymbol puts the OneCharacterSymbols in the main symbol table already. Then OneCharacterSymbols is just used by #allSymbols and #selectorsContaining:, with the latter having no users. https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/11241 Besides the bugfix, it removes some one Character symbols that never got used and speeds up #allSymbols a little. And it simplifies the code related to the symbol table a little, which will make it easier to improve it later. Marcus

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Please check older Issue tracker entries!
by Marcus Denker May 18, 2022

May 18, 2022

Hi, One problem with a public issue tracker: it accumulates lots of issuesâ¦ This sadly means that issues will not be looked at one by oneâ¦ there are just too many. One thing that is interesting to do is to check the issue that *you* submitted. - Is the issue still relevant? - is the title good and in sync with the issue? - Has it been fixed already ? (it happens!) Then, for every issue there is a ânext stepâ. It can be a good thing to spell out very explicitly what the next step is âWe need to create a Pull Request for the suggested fixâ. Or maybe what is needed is a summary of the huge discussion in the issue tracker entry. Another idea: try to find others to help. E.g. - send a mail to the mailinglist. - ask on discord. Maybe you can find a small group that works on this issue together. Marcus

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