Development Day 6: String Pool

My first language was Java. So C++ does a few things where I said “why is C++ that way”, and there are other things where I saw “Java should’ve been this way”.

Java uses a String pool – for a touch more detail, see this StackOverflow question. The basic idea is that Strings are saved ahead of time in order to save memory.

ChronoWatch does things “by name”, meaning that it certainly would be nice if we used a String pool. But C++ doesn’t provide one.

The following code provides ChronoWatch with a String pool-like implementation. It’s a little slow because it’s a set, but it helps drastically lower the profiler’s memory usage.

#include <string>
#include <set>

using CW_Atom = const char*;

namespace ChronoTools
{
  static std::set<std::string> interned;

  inline CW_Atom atom_str(std::string const& value)
  {
    return ChronoTools::interned.insert(value).first->c_str();
  }
}

Time spent: 5 hours. (Other minor architecture changes were made to allow the string pool to work in the first place.)

Development Day 5: Time versus Timer

Imagine eight classes defined in the same *.cpp file.

… You can stop crying now.

ChronoWatch was thrown into GGEngine’s TimeUtils implementation, including functionality for telling a thread to sleep… and that’s about it.

Later, StopWatch was also added. This meant that the TimeUtils files (which had been renamed to ChronoSupport.cpp and ChronoSupport.hpp) ran at an approximate total of 840 lines of code. Oops. So much for lightweight.

So today, this happened:

DecoupleAgain

Yes, StopWatch no longer ships with ChronoWatch.

Additionally, ChronoWatch’s initial variables have been moved to their own file, so you can freely change them without looking at the actual implementation:ChronoVars

Time spent: 5.5 hours. (Other minor architecture changes were made in preparation for upcoming/additional functionality.)

~Nolan T Yoo

Development Day 3+4: Readable Output

Commit history for the curious, as far as this work segment goes:

OctProgressReport

So as I re-remember, just because something can update every frame, doesn’t mean that it should. Any text that changes every frame probably isn’t going to be that readable. At least, I know that I can’t read 60 numbers per second.

… So why did ChronoWatch v1.0 insist on updating text every frame? Oops!

While ChronoWatch isn’t outputting profile information into a text file, the text that it does display should probably be readable. As such, it is now possible to change how often ChronoWatch updates its display.

MeterDispFeature

Unfortunately that is a number of frames: the display will update every 12 frames rather than every frame… and rather than every 12 milliseconds.

Oh well. This is approximately 5 updates per second assuming 60 FPS. Obviously that isn’t reality, but I’m happy with this achievement nonetheless.

 

Time spent: 8.5 hours. (Other engine decoupling changes were made.)

~Nolan T Yoo

Development Day 2: What’s a Lambda?

As I prepare for the rewrite (however partial), it’s important to get ChronoWatch v1.0 into a readable state. This means:

  • Adding comments
  • Removing lambdas

“What’s a lambda?” you may ask. My answer – and this is why I’m removing lambdas – is “ask someone else”. I initially used them for writing in-place comparison functions. But that’s, to put it lightly, messy. Especially since the lambda I’m most interested in doesn’t actually change in terms of functionality. But because it’s used in-place, it has to be written twice. Here’s ChronoWatch’s sorting with lambdas:

CW_Lambdas

Notice that the left.second > right.second line doesn’t change between the two std::sort calls.

The solution is to write lambda as an actual function, template it, and now remove the lambdas:

CW_NoLambdas

Disclaimer: There are times and places for lambdas – if there weren’t, they never would’ve been passed into the standard. However, in my case they make the code messier, and I don’t have a complete understanding of them anyway.

Time spent: 5.5 hours. (Other efficiency tweaks were made.)

~Nolan T Yoo