[petsc-dev] We need to cleanup viewers

[Jed Brown]

Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> writes:

> On Mar 27, 2014, at 5:03 PM, Jed Brown <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:
>
>> Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> writes:
>>>    If a user calls XXX() and it doesn’t do what they expect, how do
>>>    they figure out what is wrong? It is called debugging and usually
>>>    it is because what they expect is not what it does.
>> 
>> I have to say, my first instinct in such cases, especially when working
>> with an unfamiliar code base, is that the line invoking the viewer is
>> never reached
>
>    Trivia to check in the debugger. 

Yes, but already cumbersome when the front-end is Python, the program is
launched through a script that always creates at least 9 processes, the
build system doesn't support simultaneous debug and optimized installs,
and rebuilds take hours.  Suddenly you're jumping through hoops (each
one manageable if disconcerting) for what should have been a 10-second
task.  I don't understand why people bring such things upon them, but
the things we shrug off as 10-second queries are not always.  Yes, it's
"their" own damn fault for building a monstrosity, but there is
sometimes amazing value in simple reasoning about user code.

>> Sometimes we want XXView(X,V) to mean "Hey X, anything you feel like
>> talking about?" and other times we mean "X, serialize yourself!”
>
>    Maybe this is related to the specific type of viewer and even
>    format.  

Indeed, some sort of attribute of the viewer.  It may be tricky to know
which semantic is best in all cases, but I think many are clear.

>    Also it is related to either 1) serialize yourself so you can be
>    totally recreated (true serialization) versus 2) serialize enough
>    of yourself so I can visualize you.  We usually do 2) currently and
>    in that case it is reasonable sometimes to not view everything.
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