Julia: Gadfly load time regression from 0.5 to 0.6.

Created on 22 Dec 2017 · 16Comments · Source: JuliaLang/julia

How the heck does anyone get anything done in Julia 0.6.2 on 64-bit linux (ubuntu 16.04). It takes 22 seconds to load the plotting package Gadfly ??? It's not precompilation time, since it happens even after the package has been precompiled once. If I restart Julia, I still have to wait, sometimes even longer the second time.

~~~

julia

_ _ _(_)_ | A fresh approach to technical computing
(_) | (_) (_) | Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
_ _ _| |_ __ _ | Type "?help" for help.
| | | | | | |/ _` | |
| | |_| | | | (_| | | Version 0.6.2 (2017-12-13 18:08 UTC)
_/ |__'_|_|_|__'_| | Official http://julialang.org/ release
|__/ | x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc()
elapsed time: 22.640510854 seconds
22.640510854

julia> [ctl-D to exit]

julia

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc()
elapsed time: 28.402201721 seconds
28.402201721

julia>
~~~

latency regression

Source

glycerine

Most helpful comment

To be clear, we are very aware that compile and startup times are an issue and it is at the top of the post-1.0 priority list.

StefanKarpinski on 22 Dec 2017

❤2

All 16 comments

How the heck does anyone get anything done

Not a very constructive tone.

Is this something you didn't experience before, or is this your first time working with Julia? Long load times of certain packages is a very well known issue.

pkofod on 22 Dec 2017

Long load times of certain packages is a very well known issue.

If this is a duplicate, where's the open ticket?

glycerine on 22 Dec 2017

Gadfly startup time issues should be reported in that repo and has been able discussed in gadfly.jl issues.

Please also realize that this is a community project. So it helps to be constructive and offer to pitch in.

ViralBShah on 22 Dec 2017

For others who will have a similar experience as my own, and search and find this issue after being astonished at the slow startup times in julia 6.2, here are links to related open issues:

https://github.com/GiovineItalia/Gadfly.jl/issues/921

https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/15048

These appear to be long standing issues in both Gadfly and Julia 0.6.x itself.

However those currently open issues do not explain why using gets SLOWER the second time around. So we suspect that this is a novel, useful, possibly new observation.

glycerine on 22 Dec 2017

So we suspect that this is a novel, useful, possibly new observation.

And that is certainly something to investigate.

In the original comment you mention that sometimes it is slower the second time around. Is this to be interpreted as it is unpredictable,or as it is almost always slower the second time around?

Still, I think Viral Shah's comment stands, until proven to be a general JuliaLang issue, this discussion should probably be held at Gadfly.

pkofod on 22 Dec 2017

To be clear, we are very aware that compile and startup times are an issue and it is at the top of the post-1.0 priority list.

StefanKarpinski on 22 Dec 2017

❤2

Does anybody happen to know if the gadfly load time is worse than in 0.6.1, or 0.6.0, or 0.5.x?

JeffBezanson on 22 Dec 2017

Seems to be a regression. For comparison to the above, here is Julia 0.5.2 on my system, a mere 3.9 seconds versus > 20 seconds.

~~~
on Julia 0.5.2 on ubuntu 16.04 amd64

initial build time on my system

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc();
INFO: Precompiling module Gadfly.
WARNING: Method definition describe(AbstractArray) in module StatsBase at /root/.julia/v0.5/StatsBase/src/scalarstats.jl:560 overwritten in module DataFrames at /root/.julia/v0.5/DataFrames/src/abstractdataframe/abstractdataframe.jl:407.
WARNING: Method definition describe(AbstractArray) in module StatsBase at /root/.julia/v0.5/StatsBase/src/scalarstats.jl:560 overwritten in module DataFrames at /root/.julia/v0.5/DataFrames/src/abstractdataframe/abstractdataframe.jl:407.
WARNING: Method definition describe(AbstractArray) in module StatsBase at /root/.julia/v0.5/StatsBase/src/scalarstats.jl:560 overwritten in module DataFrames at /root/.julia/v0.5/DataFrames/src/abstractdataframe/abstractdataframe.jl:407.
elapsed time: 87.792589576 seconds

julia>

`using` time:

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc();
WARNING: Method definition describe(AbstractArray) in module StatsBase at /root/.julia/v0.5/StatsBase/src/scalarstats.jl:560 overwritten in module DataFrames at /root/.julia/v0.5/DataFrames/src/abstractdataframe/abstractdataframe.jl:407.
elapsed time: 3.857843109 seconds

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc();
elapsed time: 8.88e-5 seconds

`using` time after pre-compilation

julia>
root@379846b04147:~# julia
_
_ _ _(_)_ | A fresh approach to technical computing
(_) | (_) (_) | Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
_ _ _| |_ __ _ | Type "?help" for help.
| | | | | | |/ _` | |
| | |_| | | | (_| | | Version 0.5.2 (2017-05-06 16:34 UTC)
_/ |__'_|_|_|__'_| | Official http://julialang.org/ release
|__/ | x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

julia>
~~~

some Julia 0.6.2 timings for comparison:

~~~
$ /usr/local/julia-0.6.2/bin/julia
_
_ _ _(_)_ | A fresh approach to technical computing
(_) | (_) (_) | Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
_ _ _| |_ __ _ | Type "?help" for help.
| | | | | | |/ _` | |
| | |_| | | | (_| | | Version 0.6.2 (2017-12-13 18:08 UTC)
_/ |__'_|_|_|__'_| | Official http://julialang.org/ release
|__/ | x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc()
elapsed time: 25.549629369 seconds
25.549629369

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc()
elapsed time: 0.000171706 seconds
0.000171706

julia>
$ /usr/local/julia-0.6.2/bin/julia
_
_ _ _(_)_ | A fresh approach to technical computing
(_) | (_) (_) | Documentation: https://docs.julialang.org
_ _ _| |_ __ _ | Type "?help" for help.
| | | | | | |/ _` | |
| | |_| | | | (_| | | Version 0.6.2 (2017-12-13 18:08 UTC)
_/ |__'_|_|_|__'_| | Official http://julialang.org/ release
|__/ | x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc()
elapsed time: 21.39631405 seconds
21.39631405

julia> tic(); using Gadfly; toc()
elapsed time: 0.00016042 seconds
0.00016042

julia>
~~~

glycerine on 23 Dec 2017

Is that the same version of Gadfly aswell? (look at Pkg.status("Gadfly"))

pkofod on 23 Dec 2017

I can reproduce the very significant slowdown between Julia 0.5.2 and 0.6.2-pre both running Gadfly 0.6.4.

andreasnoack on 23 Dec 2017

The load time regression is definitely a real issue. Reopening. @glycerine Thanks for reporting that.

ViralBShah on 23 Dec 2017

This is a general problem mostly due to the new type system in 0.6, e.g. #24383

JeffBezanson on 26 Dec 2017

Curious. I wouldn't think a big regression like that would be allowed to persist in the latest release. Why not back out the problem and publish an 0.6.3 with the fix immediately, if not sooner? ;)

glycerine on 26 Dec 2017

Because the cause was a bug fix and the buggy behavior was an accidental and incorrect "optimization". To fix this would be to be intentionally incorrect; otherwise, we need a correct version of such an optimization.

StefanKarpinski on 27 Dec 2017

👍1

Procedural issue: this does not need to be triaged, because triage at the moment is focused on 1.0, which is a feature milestone.

JeffBezanson on 28 Dec 2017

Don't think a dedicated issue needs to be open about this. We all know we need to improve package load time across the board.

KristofferC on 15 Oct 2019

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Julia: Gadfly load time regression from 0.5 to 0.6.

julia

julia

Most helpful comment

All 16 comments

initial build time on my system

using time:

using time after pre-compilation

Related issues

`using` time:

`using` time after pre-compilation