My talk on project Kaldur at Linux Piter 2016

1. On performance analyzing again:
Gathering and visualizing flamegraphs in
realtime in Linux environment
Alex Chistyakov, DataArt
Linux Piter 2016, Russia, SPb.
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2. Who I am (very quickly)
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• Senior SW Developer @ DataArt
• More than 18 years of professional experience
• Researcher @ ISST Lab, ITMO
• Used to be a DevOps Engineer and still probably am
• Can’t quit making presentations w/lots of bullets (that’s
terrible, I know)

3. Performance optimization is not that hard
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4. Ever heard of a ’comfort zone’?
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• It’s crucial to be out of it to learn something new

5. Ever heard of a ’comfort zone’?
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• It’s crucial to be out of it to learn something new
• So I made this presentation in TeX

6. Ever heard of a ’comfort zone’?
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• It’s crucial to be out of it to learn something new
• So I made this presentation in TeX
• With lots of bullets, you know

7. Ever heard of a ’comfort zone’?
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• It’s crucial to be out of it to learn something new
• So I made this presentation in TeX
• With lots of bullets, you know
• Because I’m not ready yet to leave my comfort zone
entirely

8. Ever heard of a ’comfort zone’?
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• It’s crucial to be out of it to learn something new
• So I made this presentation in TeX
• With lots of bullets, you know
• Because I’m not ready yet to leave my comfort zone
entirely
• Damn, TeX seems to be my new comfort zone ;(

9. Okay, flashback to LP 2015 (w/no bullets)
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10. Fast-forward to 2016
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Brendan Gregg declared Linux DTrace-complete!

11. A great step forward for mankind...
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...but I’m a cat

12. So, what is this all about?
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• Modern GNU/Linux

13. So, what is this all about?
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• Modern GNU/Linux
• A web application

14. So, what is this all about?
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• Modern GNU/Linux
• A web application
• Collecting flamegraphs

15. So, what is this all about?
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• Modern GNU/Linux
• A web application
• Collecting flamegraphs
• Visualizing collected flamegraphs

16. Okay, but what are these flame... things?
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Did you attend LP 2015?

17. Doing flamegraphs in 2016 is extremely easy
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18. A hicker needs good boots
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19. So, we need a language
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20. The obvious choice
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21. Why Lisp?
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• Homoiconicity

22. Why Lisp?
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• Homoiconicity
• Macros

23. Why Lisp?
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• Homoiconicity
• Macros
• Immutability (?)

24. Why Lisp?
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• Homoiconicity
• Macros
• Immutability (?)
• Lambdas

25. But that was not too democratic, so...
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...what about Golang?

26. Unfortunately, Golang loses
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• Way too modern (uses design ideas from 1970s while Lisp
was born in 1958)

27. Unfortunately, Golang loses
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• Way too modern (uses design ideas from 1970s while Lisp
was born in 1958)
• Not functional enough (as in ’functional programming’)

28. Unfortunately, Golang loses
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• Way too modern (uses design ideas from 1970s while Lisp
was born in 1958)
• Not functional enough (as in ’functional programming’)
• Targets Java 1.2 and PHP 4.x market share (designed for
apes not humans)

29. Runtime matters!
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• Static linking is a must

30. Runtime matters!
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• Static linking is a must
• Decent GC is a must

31. Runtime matters!
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• Static linking is a must
• Decent GC is a must
• Resulting files should not be too big

32. Runtime matters!
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• Static linking is a must
• Decent GC is a must
• Resulting files should not be too big
• Let’s consider measureable things only

33. So, Lisps then
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• Common Lisp
• Scheme

34. Common Lisp
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Statically linked file is over 30Mb (Golang does around 8Mb)

35. Scheme
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Is minimalist by design (way too minimalist I’d say)

36. So, no boots then?
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37. Nim to the rescue!
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Nim (formerly Nimrod)

38. Nim: the good parts
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• Strong typing

39. Nim: the good parts
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• Strong typing
• Static typing

40. Nim: the good parts
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• Strong typing
• Static typing
• Homoiconicity

41. Nim: the good parts
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• Strong typing
• Static typing
• Homoiconicity
• Macro system (hygienic)

42. Nim: the good parts
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• Strong typing
• Static typing
• Homoiconicity
• Macro system (hygienic)
• Immutability

43. Nim: the good parts
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• Strong typing
• Static typing
• Homoiconicity
• Macro system (hygienic)
• Immutability
• Templates (generics)

44. Nim: runtime goodness
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• Uses C as an IR

45. Nim: runtime goodness
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• Uses C as an IR
• Per thread GC (as in Erlang)

46. Nim: runtime goodness
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• Uses C as an IR
• Per thread GC (as in Erlang)
• Statically linked files < 1Mb (not stripped)

47. Project Kaldur
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• Means ’cold’ in Faroese
• Because it’s quite cold now
• https://github.com/alexclear/kaldur

48. Project Kaldur
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• Is live at http://185.37.61.240:5000
• Has a TODO list on Github
• Has an issues list on Github

49. Conclusions
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• TeX is great!
• Nim is great too!
• Flamegraphs are great!
• Linux is great!
• Open source projects are great!

50. Questions, please?
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• Why FP?
• Why Linux?
• ...?

51. So long, and thanks for all the fish
Alex Chistyakov, DataArt Gathering and visualizing flamegraphs in realtime 51 / 51
• achistyakov@dataart.com
• https://telegram.me/lhommequipleure