Re: [linuxtools-dev] Tmf: a model to support new trace analysis types

[Alexandre Montplaisir <alexmonthy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just going through the rest of the comments...

On 13-07-15 04:33 PM, Geneviève Bastien wrote:
> [...]
>
>> Right now the trace type defines some of the elements you put in the
>> "analysis" (like state systems and custom statistics). It's also
>> possible to define a specific perspective (collection of views) in the
>> plugin for a trace type. (The framework could be improved wrt that, for
>> example automatically opening the perspective that matches the type of
>> the trace that is opened.)
> It's more than changing perspective.  With the proposed approach,
> analysis modules may come from varied sources and not necessarily be
> part of TMF and linuxtools, so they won't be able to modify the
> perspective and won't need to touch TMF.  Anyway, many analyses can be
> done on a single trace and modifying the perspective for each one
> would be a pain and changing the trace type to have access to another
> analysis is not the best idea.  Why force the user to choose between
> the butter or money for the butter, when you can have it all!

A separate plugin can ship its own perspective. And it's possible to
open views or perspectives programmatically (like when you debug a
program for the first time, it asks you if you want to switch to the
Debug perspective).

> [...]
>>
>> The "mandatory" analyzes can be done today with how we handle trace
>> types (buildStatistics(), buildStateSystems(), etc.). The optional ones
>> however would be a new concept. Maybe we could have something like a
>> right-click menu option, "Apply analysis" -> "Critical Path analysis",
>> so the code is only ran when asked to do so. Or it could be done
>> automatically when the view is opened.
> I was thinking on a "on demand" approach for optional analyses, when
> the view is opened (so when the output of the analysis is required). 
> Of course, that would mean to wait on the analysis when we want the
> view now...

I agree, it's annoying to open a view and then having to wait. But if
it's on-demand, no processing will start until the user clicks something
anyway. So whether he clicks "Start Analysis" or "Open view", the end
result is quite the same.