Jan Köhnlein

Improving the

Responsiveness of Your

Xtext-based IDE

Xtext Master

DOJO

• If you cannot parallelize, make it cancelable • CancelableUnitOfWork • OutdatedStateManager#checkOutdated

• OperationCanceledManager transforms exceptions

Cancelation

• IXtextDocument#priorityReadOnly • for fast UI services, e.g. content assist • cancels current document readers • executes action • restarts model listeners

Priority Read

Transactions

• 10yo bug finally fixed in Mars • JobManager#isBlocking didn’t consider thread jobs • Auto-build no longer blocks a save operation

BUG   60964

• Store fully-resolved models to disk • Node model, resolved x-refs, resolved types, index data…

• Drastically reduces build times • especially for Xbase languages

Storage Aware

Resource

• ParallelBuilderParticipant

Parallel Generation

WORKOUT For Xtext

Kyus

• Don’t guess – measure! • Use a profiler, not the system clock

• But don’t trust your measurements!

The Profiling

Koan

• Check CancelIndicators and ProgressMonitors frequently

• Avoid calculation in the UI thread • Careful with ProgressMonitor progress reporting • Use BackgroundOutlineTreeProvider

Mastering the GUI

• Avoid backtracking • Reduce lookahead by

• adding keywords, preferably as prefix • adding syntactic predicates • use first-token-set predicates in complicated lookahead scenarios

Train your

Grammar

• Keep an eye on algorithmic complexity • Prefer index-based NamesAreUniqueValidator • Avoid unnecessary loading of external resources • Use CheckType.NORMAL

Validation KUNG-FU

• Avoid using long chains of binary operations • Explicitly state types when necessary

Xbase Workout

• Avoid clustering – increase memory instead • Use StorageAwareResource • Reduce number of indexed elements • Use parallel code generator • Maven: Avoid composite update sites

Builder Katas

THank YOU