[Qt-creator] QtCreator 4.3 Beta and CMake 3.7.x Server Mode Slowness

[Tobias Hunger]

Hi Mike,

I found a couple of optimization opportunities. Let's see how much
difference these will make:-)

Some smaller ones are in already, but the big one (finding CMakeLists
again after they were inserted) is still open.

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 4:43 PM, Mike Jackson <imikejackson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tobias Hunger wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 2:04 PM, Mike Jackson<imikejackson at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Well, server-mode does get way better information out of cmake, so
>>>> that is kind of expected:-)
>>>>
>>>> What does the code model say (Tools>C++>Inspect C++ code model)? Does
>>>> it list the expected include directories?
>>>
>>>
>>> I just noticed that the issue is when I look at a .h file in the editor.
>>> In
>>> the project list the .h file is grayed out and the code model only shows
>>> a
>>> few include paths. Its like the Project Model does not know how to handle
>>> the .h files because they are not compiled?
>>
>>
>> That should not make any difference: Those header files are not ever
>> passed on to the code model:-) That just gets the sources and include
>> paths and then figures stuff out itself.
>>
>>>> I want to get rid of the tealeaf mode as soon as possible. The name is
>>>> fitting: What Creator is doing without server-mode is reading in tea
>>>> leaves, mostly tea leaves that are documented to change meaning at any
>>>> time!
>>>>
>>>> Perpetuating tealeaf mode by having users enable it for newer cmakes
>>>> is definitely not in my interest!
>>>
>>>
>>> I agree philosophically but there may be a practical side of things. Lets
>>> see if the issues all get fixed by release of QtCreator 4.3 then I really
>>> will not have any argument at that point.
>>
>>
>> I do not find anything to fix: DREAM.3D opens in<  5s for me.
>>
>> A couple seconds later (for C++ parsing, Test scanning, etc.) the CPU
>> usage is down to below 5% on all cores.
>>
>> Ninja reports only 1351 things that need building though, so maybe I
>> did something wrong?
>
>
> I tried again with build -997 and it does seem much faster now. I wonder
> what changed between -992 and -997. Do you still see multiple "DREAM3D"
> targets on the list? I see DREAM3D, DREAM3D2, DREAM3D3 and a few other
> targets within the main project show up like that.
>
>>
>>>> I'm currently trying to set up DREAM.3D for testing:-)
>>>>
>>>> So far I found two smaller issues with creator's cmake support due to
>>>> it -- and I did not even manage to make it build yet:-) What a
>>>> wonderful test project!
>>>
>>> Interesting. What were the issues? If you do find issues with DREAM.3D or
>>> any of its subprojects just let us know or put in an issue at GitHub.com.
>>> Our use of CMake may not be completely standard or may be unexpected.
>>> Some
>>> of the CMake code has been in there since 2009.
>>
>>
>> Small stuff inside Creator. E.g. Creator should *always* show at least
>> the top level CMakeLists.txt file and a broken configuration of
>> DREAM.3D broke that. Fixed now.
>>
>> <snip>
>>>>
>>>> Well, cmake is heavily single-threaded, so all your cores will not
>>>> help with anything cmake-related:-)
>>>
>>> So when QtCreator is spinning a beach-ball on macOS and QtCreator is only
>>> burning 100% is that because CMake is taking a while to do something?
>>
>>
>> No idea:-)
>>
>> What does the progress bar say when creator is busy? That should give
>> a hint as to what is going on. As I said: It takes about 5s to open
>> DREAM.3D on my laptop and that is a considerably less capable machine
>> than yours.
>
>
> The beach-ball really prevents anything from being seen. Nothing obvious
> that I can see. Is it possible to output something to the "Application
> Output" or "Compile Output" widgets that indicates that information is being
> gathered from CMake? Or maybe there is a way for me to log that and I just
> don't know about it (Most likely..).
>>
>>
>>> Configuring our project can take upwards of 30 seconds on macOS and Linux
>>> and even longer on Windows. You can check the times at
>>> http://my.cdash.org/index.php?project=DREAM3D, clicking the gear icon in
>>> the
>>> upper right side and selecting Advanced View.
>>
>>
>> I must be doing something wrong then, my machine is much faster than that.
>
>
> Are you on Linux? Our Core i7-4790K (4.0GHz) will configure in 7 seconds.
> The same exact configuration on my 2010 12 core Mac Pro take 41 secs.
>
>>
>>> Maybe popping up a dialog if it is taking longer than xx seconds to run
>>> the
>>> CMake part? That way it does not look like it is hung up? I imagine for
>>> smaller projects this is not a problem because CMake runs fast enough on
>>> those projects.
>>
>>
>> I do not think that cmake is the problem here. You know how long it
>> takes to run cmake on the command line and Creator should never be
>> slower than that.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Tobias
>
>
> I agree (and proved that is the case) it is after cmake is done running when
> the project tree is being generated that is taking the most time. I'll try
> to get over to the Linux machine and see how long it takes over there.
>
> Mike Jackson
>