[PD-dev] plans for next Pd release

Tue Sep 14 23:33:43 CEST 2021

> Maybe IOhannes & Christof can give their take? Also, I believe the PR 
> includes a compile-time define to enable/disable.
I think the PR is already in very good shape. The public API functions 
(in s_stuff.h) look reasonable. I have to admit I haven't checked the 
most recent commits yet, but I'll put that on my list.

It seems it's too late for Pd 0.52 anyway, but it should definitely be 
on the roadmap for Pd 0.53! I would suggest to handle it like the 
networking IPv6 overhaul: review and merge it well in advance, so it can 
be tested for a few month in the wild before it goes into Pd 0.53.

---

> threads are the easiest way to make software less reliable :)
It depends. If threading is done with lots of shared state then it can 
easily become messy. But if it's done with message passing (via 
thread-safe queues), things become much simpler and less error prone 
(see also my proposed asynchronous task API: 
https://github.com/pure-data/pure-data/pull/1357).

The PR by Giulio falls into the second category, so I don't think you 
have to worry too much about race conditions and such.

---

As a general remark:

Single core CPU performance hasn't improved much for the last decade, 
instead we get more and more cores. My working machine already has 16 
hardware threads, so at the moment Pd can only use 1/16 of the available 
processing power. There are already CPUs with 128 hardware threads, like 
the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3995WX. With 5000€ it is not exactly cheap, 
but it shows us the direction we're heading to.

In the future it will become less and less acceptable that Pd does most 
of its work on a single thread. IMHO we really have to embrance 
multi-threading to stay relevant.

Actually, I've been thinking about ways to implement multi-threaded DSP 
in Pd that is optional, backwards-compatible and also works in the 
context of libpd.

I'm too busy with other stuff at the moment, but I'll try to come up 
with a PoC at the end of the year.*

Christof

* I actually need this for a specific large project of mine. Currently, 
I have to split it into several independent [pd~] instances so that it 
runs in realtime, which is very awkward. I have been thinking to switch 
to Supernova (Supercollider), but first I want to see how far I can get 
with a custom multi-threaded Pd version.

On 14.09.2021 19:50, Dan Wilcox wrote:
> Maybe IOhannes & Christof can give their take? Also, I believe the PR 
> includes a compile-time define to enable/disable.
>
>> On Sep 14, 2021, at 7:37 PM, Miller Puckette <msp at ucsd.edu 
>> <mailto:msp at ucsd.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> I confess I haven't even looked at this yet. Any added thread 
>> operations in
>> Pd will take a lot of work for me to scrutinize (threads are the 
>> easiest way
>> to make software less reliable :)
>>
>> Miller
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 11:36:36AM +0100, Giulio Moro via Pd-dev wrote:
>>> Let me take the opportunity to flag again that it would be great if 
>>> I could receive some feedback on this:
>>>
>>>> I have had this PR open for a while: 
>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_pure-2Ddata_pure-2Ddata_pull_1261&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=NEKBF7n4zuLkQoHhnt2oBrRg860DeQ60qejG5VrplXE&e= 
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_pure-2Ddata_pure-2Ddata_pull_1261&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=NEKBF7n4zuLkQoHhnt2oBrRg860DeQ60qejG5VrplXE&e=> 
>>>>  . It adds threaded behaviour for disk and network I/O, making the 
>>>> Pd audio thread "real-time safer". I went through quite a few 
>>>> revisions courtesy of umlaeute and Spacechild1, but haven't heard 
>>>> from you directly. I am happy to do some more work if there is 
>>>> interest in merging. CI build currently fails because of weird 
>>>> "support" of ssize_t on VS (happy to hear about workarounds).
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Giulio
>>>
>>> Dan Wilcox wrote on 14/09/2021 11:18:
>>>> ...which reminds me I haven't had any time to look into 
>>>> macOS-specific stuff (bad) such as usual TK issues, M1 arm builds, 
>>>> etc, due to too much project work (good). Maybe this weekend / 
>>>> coming week.
>>>>
>>>>> On Sep 14, 2021, at 12:00 PM, pd-dev-request at lists.iem.at 
>>>>> <mailto:pd-dev-request at lists.iem.at> 
>>>>> <mailto:pd-dev-request at lists.iem.at 
>>>>> <mailto:pd-dev-request at lists.iem.at>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Message: 1
>>>>> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2021 20:52:19 -0300
>>>>> From: Alexandre Torres Porres <porres at gmail.com 
>>>>> <mailto:porres at gmail.com> <mailto:porres at gmail.com 
>>>>> <mailto:porres at gmail.com>>>
>>>>> To: Miller Puckette <msp at ucsd.edu <mailto:msp at ucsd.edu> 
>>>>> <mailto:msp at ucsd.edu <mailto:msp at ucsd.edu>>>
>>>>> Cc: pd-dev <pd-dev at lists.iem.at <mailto:pd-dev at lists.iem.at> 
>>>>> <mailto:pd-dev at lists.iem.at <mailto:pd-dev at lists.iem.at>>>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [PD-dev] plans for next Pd release
>>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>> <CAEAsFmivBpXw=kCOYO6Xjtjja8wZnKaiy3vG30cc=vHxXOFuYw at mail.gmail.com 
>>>>> <mailto:CAEAsFmivBpXw=kCOYO6Xjtjja8wZnKaiy3vG30cc=vHxXOFuYw at mail.gmail.com> 
>>>>> <mailto:CAEAsFmivBpXw=kCOYO6Xjtjja8wZnKaiy3vG30cc=vHxXOFuYw at mail.gmail.com 
>>>>> <mailto:CAEAsFmivBpXw=kCOYO6Xjtjja8wZnKaiy3vG30cc=vHxXOFuYw at mail.gmail.com>>>
>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>>>
>>>>> hi, sorry to bug you Miller, but summer is ending and I was 
>>>>> wondering about
>>>>> the next release if it's coming soon.
>>>>>
>>>>> cheers
>>>>
>>>> --------
>>>> Dan Wilcox
>>>> @danomatika 
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__twitter.com_danomatika&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=zjK5QkKGpT-PmrQubeExT09_VePF4PLClKFuUU7Lsmw&e= 
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__twitter.com_danomatika&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=zjK5QkKGpT-PmrQubeExT09_VePF4PLClKFuUU7Lsmw&e=> 
>>>> >
>>>> danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com> 
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__danomatika.com&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=KZkE41QzIdpbaImsCAE9wFPhFxPOKT2p3q3zEaWbkiU&e= 
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__danomatika.com&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=KZkE41QzIdpbaImsCAE9wFPhFxPOKT2p3q3zEaWbkiU&e=> 
>>>> >
>>>> robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com> 
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__robotcowboy.com&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=YHBFPwMTjJhBcivlhnTedozN_bJVvdETM-YaNsV2zOY&e= 
>>>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__robotcowboy.com&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=YHBFPwMTjJhBcivlhnTedozN_bJVvdETM-YaNsV2zOY&e=> 
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Pd-dev mailing list
>>>> Pd-dev at lists.iem.at <mailto:Pd-dev at lists.iem.at>
>>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.puredata.info_listinfo_pd-2Ddev&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=VPt5_FzAma0FrHHO7yOSiWOvqe7vlOuPzDm2yRw376U&e=
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Pd-dev mailing list
>>> Pd-dev at lists.iem.at <mailto:Pd-dev at lists.iem.at>
>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__lists.puredata.info_listinfo_pd-2Ddev&d=DwICAg&c=-35OiAkTchMrZOngvJPOeA&r=XprZV3Fxus2L1LCw80hE4Q&m=CIAxkh54128umfUyOzvHUJpNlBoM5hT8fsDZOvywKOQ&s=VPt5_FzAma0FrHHO7yOSiWOvqe7vlOuPzDm2yRw376U&e=
>>
>> -- 
>
> --------
> Dan Wilcox
> @danomatika <http://twitter.com/danomatika>
> danomatika.com <http://danomatika.com>
> robotcowboy.com <http://robotcowboy.com>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Pd-dev mailing list
> Pd-dev at lists.iem.at
> https://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-dev
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.puredata.info/pipermail/pd-dev/attachments/20210914/56a854d1/attachment-0001.htm>