The Nineteenth Byte

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

02:06

@Downgoat How difficult do you think it would be to compile JavaScript to VSL? I have a brownfield JavaScript application that uses JS almost like it's C. I'm thinking of rewriting the actual hot computations in highly optimized VSL

Because if the blurb on the README is true, VSL sounds very very cool

Downgoat

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ hmm biggest issue would be typing, but there is already in fact a bindgen that (if oyu specify types of methods with a WebIDL document) you can use JS with VSL

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

I actually will contribute to VSL and use it if what it says is true is true

@Downgoat Hmm, explain? What would the steps be to compile JS to VSL?

I can definitely specify most types for it, but I want to retain the flexibility (other developers on the project who don't know javascript may not be able to type their code right)

What if I plugged the VSL backend into GraalVM I can run VSL with a JIT that interoperates with JS?? (That's a crazy idea, I would prefer to just get a reliable ECMAScript3->VSL compiler)

(Also where are the download binaries? The DNS doesn't seem to work for 'em)

Downgoat

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ As in the VSL WASM target will be able to interop with JavaScript (experimental DOM apis for vsl)

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

Hmmm how fast is the interop?

(Can I use pass-by-value or something as fast as it in VSL?)

Downgoat

interop is very low-overhead since VSL runs in WASM so almost bare metal

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

02:13

does the LLVM target exist?

Downgoat

VSL doesn't actually pass objects it passes integers to and from JS that refer to objects which bolsters speed

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

~~create a wasm->llvm retargeting compiler and run vsl on the graalvm jit~~

Downgoat

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ as in a VSL->LLVM? That's what it does right now

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

cool

Btw, my git tip for you is: Use GitUp and commit every time you have a meaningful change, branch locally to experiment, cherry pick to get commits from one branch onto another, rebase to make git think the commit was always part of the history, and rewrite and split to clean your commit history

But very, very cool, sir

I'm part of a community that builds the game Arras.io. I can... look into mobilizing some developer resources to help with VSL stuff if you gave a bucket list of things we could do to help.

Downgoat

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ thats a good idea :P VSL commit history is a mess since I get so many features stuck in one branch and don't want to smush them all together

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

02:16

@Downgoat yessssss Git is amazing when you use it the right way

I hated git until I read this ONE blog post and started deliberately practicing its method

In the next iteration of Arras' infrastructure/deploment system, Git will become my CI

Downgoat

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ For VSL? Current things on the to do list are dynamic dispatch for interfaces, optional types, and lambdas

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ git hooks ftw

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

@Downgoat yeah

push to release a random playtesting update (ssh pubkeys for access control); restarting the game server every time, pull from central master to update, updates on automatic arena close

@Downgoat Hmm, what's on the todo list for web idl?

I wonder what WASM's performance is on the serverside

I assume VSL isn't memory heavy

Downgoat

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ For WebIDL the main difficulty is actually finding WebIDLs that are standards compliant

you can find type definitions for chrome, firefox, etc but you want one thats cross platform

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

Hmmm link to example please?

Downgoat

as I work on the typescript interface for VSL hopefully that will make this easier

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

02:21

In GraalVM, the C<-->JS interop is fast enough that if I reimplement a JS class in C, I increase the application's peak throughput by 50%. (eq. to a 33% cpu usage reduction)

Downgoat

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ From WHATWG: github.com/vsl-lang/DOM/blob/master/webidl/DOM.webidl

noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ

(However, GraalVM 3.6xes memory usage compared to V8. And setting the heapmax does not help)

GraalVM does have overhead, but I enabled an experimental "inlining across language boundaries" and that helped

Can you please upload me a macos binary?

I'm interested in seeing where we can take this, I'm sure using VSL in production will only make it better :)

@Downgoat The docs link is broken help

How fast is compilation speed? Is there a "shortcut" compilation speed we can use to compile a debug build faster?

Downgoat

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ VSL has a binary format (.vslc files) which stores build information which means if you make a change pretty much only the file you change will be recompiled we can load everything else from the .vslc files

but as always -O0 results in faster comp speeds

@noɥʇʎԀʎzɐɹƆ hmm cant do binary because bundling LLVM would be complex, maybe somewhere down the line

MilkyWay90

02:46

@Quintec can I have access to the fake cicada wiki?

Downgoat

04:37

got the new vsl docgen working :D

(well for basic things like classees)

Adám