Updated summary for commit
[612e0e2](612e0e2160)
- While folks are welcome to read through the entire comments, the core
information is summarized here.
# Description
This PR drastically improves startup times of Nushell by only parsing a
single submodule of the Standard Library that provides the `banner` and
`pwd` commands. All other Standard Library commands and submodules are
parsed when imported by the user. This cuts startup times by more than
60%.
At the moment, we have stopped adding to `std-lib` because every
addition adds a small amount to the Nushell startup time.
With this change, we should once again be able to allow new
functionality to be added to the Standard Library without it impacting
`nu` startup times.
# User-Facing Changes
* Nushell now starts about 60% faster
* Breaking change: The `dirs` (Shells) aliases will return a warning
message that it will not be auto-loaded in the following release, along
with instructions on how to restore it (and disable the message)
* The `use std <submodule> *` syntax is available for convenience, but
should be avoided in scripts as it parses the entire `std` module and
all other submodules and places it in scope. The correct syntax to
*just* load a submodule is `use std/<submodule> *` (asterisk optional).
The slash is important. This will be documented.
* `use std *` can be used for convenience to load all of the library but
still incurs the full loading-time.
* `std/dirs`: Semi-breaking change. The `dirs` command replaces the
`show` command. This is more in line with the directory-stack
functionality found in other shells. Existing users will not be impacted
by this as the alias (`shells`) remains the same.
* Breaking-change: Technically a breaking change, but probably only
impacts maintainers of `std`. The virtual path for the standard library
has changed. It could previously be imported using its virtual path (and
technically, this would have been the correct way to do it):
```nu
use NU_STDLIB_VIRTUAL_DIR/std
```
The path is now simply `std/`:
```nu
use std
```
All submodules have moved accordingly.
# Timings
Comparisons below were made:
* In a temporary, clean config directory using `$env.XDG_CONFIG_HOME =
(mktemp -d)`.
* `nu` was run with a release build
* `nu` was run one time to generate the default `config.nu` (etc.) files
- Otherwise timings would include the user-prompt
* The shell was exited and then restarted several times to get timing
samples
(Note: Old timings based on 0.97 rather than 0.98, but in the range of
being accurate)
| Scenario | `$nu.startup-time` |
| --- | --- |
| 0.97.2
([aaaab8e](aaaab8e070))
Without this PR | 23ms - 24ms |
| This PR with deprecated commands | 9ms - <11ms |
| This PR after deprecated commands are removed in following release |
8ms - <10ms |
| Final PR (remove deprecated), using `--no-std-lib` | 6.1ms to 6.4ms |
| Final PR (remove deprecated), using `--no-config-file` | 3.1ms - 3.6ms
|
| Final PR (remove deprecated), using `--no-config-file --no-std-lib` |
1ms - 1.5ms |
*These last two timings point to the opportunity for further
optimization (see comment in thread below (will link once I write it).*
# Implementation details for future maintenance
* `use std banner` is a ridiculously deceptive call. That call parses
and imports *all* of `std` into scope. Simply replacing it with `use
std/core *` is essentially what saves ~14-15ms. This *only* imports the
submodule with the `banner` and `pwd` commands.
* From the code-comments, the reason that `NU_STDLIB_VIRTUAL_DIR` was
used as a prefix was so that there wouldn't be an issue if a user had a
`./std/mod.nu` in the current directory. This does **not** appear to be
an issue. After removing the prefix, I tested with both a relative
module as well as one in the `$env.NU_LIB_DIRS` path, and in all cases
the *internal* `std` still took precedence.
* By removing the prefix, users can now `use std` (and variants) without
requiring that it already be parsed and in scope.
* In the next release, we'll stop autoloading the `dirs` (shells)
functionality. While this only costs an additional 1-1.5ms, I think it's
better moved to the `config.nu` where the user can optionally remove it.
The main reason is its use of aliases (which have also caused issues) -
The `n`, `p`, and `g` short-commands are valuable real-estate, and users
may want to map these to something else.
For this release, there's an `deprecated_dirs` module that is still
autoloaded. As with the top-level commands, use of these will give a
deprecation warning with instructions on how to handle going forward.
To help with this, moved the aliases to their own submodule inside the
`dirs` module.
* Also sneaks in a small change where the top-level `dirs` command is
now the replacement for `dirs show`
* Fixed a double-import of `assert` in `dirs.nu`
* The `show_banner` step is replaced with simply `banner` rather than
re-importing it.
* A `virtual_path` may now be referenced with either a forward-slash or
a backward-slash on Windows. This allows `use std/<submodule>` to work
on all platforms.
# Performance side-notes:
* Future parsing and/or IR improvements should improve performance even
further.
* While the existing load time penalty of `std-lib` was not noticeable
on many systems, Nushell runs on a wide-variety of hardware and OS
platforms. Slower platforms will naturally see a bigger jump in
performance here. For users starting multiple Nushell sessions
frequently (e.g., `tmux`, Zellij, `screen`, et. al.) it is recommended
to keep total startup time (including user configuration) under ~250ms.
# Tests + Formatting
* All tests are green
* Updated tests:
- Removed the test that confirmed that `std` was loaded (since we
don't).
- Removed the `shells` test since it is not autoloaded. Main `dirs.nu`
functionality is tested through `stdlib-test`.
- Many tests assumed that the library was fully loaded, because it was
(even though we didn't intend for it to be). Fixed those tests.
- Tests now import only the necessary submodules (e.g., `use
std/assert`, rather than `use std assert`)
- Some tests *thought* they were loading `std/log`, but were doing so
improperly. This was masked by the now-fixed "load-everything-into-scope
bug". Local CI would pass due the `$env.NU_LOG_<...>` variables being
inherited from the calling process, but would fail in the "clean" GitHub
CI environment. These tests have also been fixed.
* Added additional tests for the changes
# After Submitting
Will update the Standard Library doc page
The nu-protocol crate holds the definitions of structs/traits that are used throughout Nushell. This gives us one way to expose them to many other crates, as well as make these definitions available to each other, without causing mutually recursive dependencies.
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