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This commit rewrites Thunk::force() so that it is not (directly)
self-recursive. It maintains a Vec of all the
previously-encountered thunks which point to the one it is currently
forcing, rather than recursively calling itself.
Benefits:
- Short term:
This commit saves the cost of a round-trip through the generator
machinery for the generators::request_force() which is removed by
this commit.
- Medium term:
Once a similar transformation has been applied to nix_cmp(),
nix_add(), nix_eq(), and coerce_to_string(), those four functions,
along with Thunk::force(), will make non-tail calls only to each
other. They can then be merged into a single tail-recursive
function which does not use the generator machinery at all:
enum Task { Cmp, Add, Eq, CoerceToString, Force};
fn Value::walk(task:Task, v1:Value, v2:Value) {
// ...
- Long term:
The long-term goal here is to use generators **only for builtins**
and [Marionette]-style remote control of the VM. In other words:
use `async` for things that actually involve concurrency. Calls
from the VM to builtins can then be blocking calls, because even
cppnix will overflow the stack if you make a MAX_STACK_DEPTH-deep
recursive call which passes through a builtin at every stack frame
(e.g. `{ func = builtins.sort (a: b: ... func ...) ...}`).
This way the inner "tight loop" of the interpreter doesn't pay the
costs of `async` and generators. These costs manifest in terms
of: performance, complex nonlocal control flow, and language
impediments (async Rust is a restricted subset of real Rust, and
is missing things like traits).
[Marionette]: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/testing/marionette/Intro.html
Change-Id: I6179b8abb2ea0492180fcb347f37595a14665777
Reviewed-on: https://cl.tvl.fyi/c/depot/+/10039
Reviewed-by: tazjin <tazjin@tvl.su>
Tested-by: BuildkiteCI
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