Feedback request regarding speed optimisations in trace mode

[Mihir Luthra]

Hi,


>
> Not necessary to stick to 10 runs, just because I said so. It can be
> even 3 or 5 runs. Whichever you feel seem to be good enough to give
> some insights. E.g., you might feel that after 3 runs you are getting
> constant time and not much difference, in another case you might get
> all different values even on running it more than 3-5 times.
>

That gave me some good insights. Rebooting surely keeps results consistent
to some level. Also, I noticed with subsequent runs, it would slow down(not
much, but does). After rebooting also only one thing remains consistent
which is the temperature of my Mac. I searched google[1] and it mentions
that as the Mac heats up more, the fans start running fast and processes
slow down. Generally Mac heats up to a nice extent when I try installing
ports continuously(even after reboot). Also my Mac has a weird
configuration(2012 mid edition, dual core, running Mojave with a WD ssd and
8gb symtronics ram). When I wait for Mac to cool down, results actually
become a bit more consistent.


>
> These were just some random thoughts I had. Not necessary to stick to
> these or follow each and every one. Just try different ways. Guest
> user might be a good option (not sure though).
>
> I would say if these things (i.e., reboot/fresh install of OS) impact
> the timeline if you end up running tests for several days or weeks, I
> would say then just run acceptable number of tests and when you feel
> 'Ya, this is the sweet spot', you may skip extensive tests (like
> rebooting system for each and every port 10 times or so).
>

Currently I only tested gettext port [2], and you would see the time taken
increases with subsequent runs(in case of modified trace mode).
Unmodified I tested later, which is why results stay consistent maybe, and
the 6th test(which I didn’t count in avg results), I took that after
waiting for Mac to cool down. Also this time for tests, I didn’t count
distfiles fetching time because the time taken for that varies a lot.


>
> Also, I would rather not do fresh install of OS on personal laptop
> each time I want to test a port. I was thinking more on terms of a
> Sandboxed environment or a VM(?) which has same setup and resources on
> each run, and which can be easily spinned up and deleted (in matter or
> minutes, in parallel, or whatever). Like a cloud platform as a service
> kind of thing, if it helps. It's easier if you can run these tests on
> Linux, since cloud has linux servers, but I don't believe major cloud
> providers provide MacOS VM's or anything of that sorts.
>
>
I searched about VM’s but generally I am not sure of it. Some places it
mentions something like its illegal to create iso file of macOS. Some
places it tells its legal so I am pretty much unsure to do that or no. For
cloud services I found this [3], although if the need for cloud services
arises, I would still need to make sure that if they would allow me to use
sudo privileges before getting a plan for a month.

Currently I feel at the least after rebooting and waiting for Mac to cool
down, results become consistent to a really nice extent.
For testing on hdd and fusion drive, I will probably have to rent a Mac
from somewhere.

One question, can I setup MacPorts base on an external hdd? I tried setting
up one but it asks for specifying something like —build, —host ,—target.

[1] https://setapp.com/how-to/how-to-fix-an-overheating-mac
[2]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ksj3Fex-AnTEU4f4IRzwUkTpN4XfUye-HqSdZwXOsKs/edit#gid=0
[3] https://www.macincloud.com

Thanks for the help,
Mihir
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