First read-through

1 files changed, 21 insertions, 65 deletions

diff --git a/book/src/main/scalatex/book/indepth/CompilationPipeline.scalatex b/book/src/main/scalatex/book/indepth/CompilationPipeline.scalatex
index 48c794c..1718f5e 100644
--- a/book/src/main/scalatex/book/indepth/CompilationPipeline.scalatex
+++ b/book/src/main/scalatex/book/indepth/CompilationPipeline.scalatex
@@ -1,74 +1,22 @@
 
-@sect{Background}
-  @p
-    Scala.js is implemented as a compiler plugin in the Scala compiler. Despite this, the overall process looks very different from that of a normal Scala application. This is because Scala.js optimizes for the size of the compiled executable, which is something that Scala-JVM does not usually do.
-
-  @sect{Small Executables}
-    Why do we care so much about how big our executables are in Scala.js? Why don't we care about how big they are on Scala-JVM? This is mostly due to three reasons:
-
-    @ul
-      @li
-        When cross-compiling Scala to Javascript, the end-result tends to be much more verbose than when cross-compiled to Java Bytecode.
-      @li
-        Scala.js typically is run in web browsers, which typically do not work well with large executables compared to e.g. the JVM
-      @li
-        Scala.js often is delivered to many users over the network, and long download times force users to wait, degrading the user experience
-
-    @p
-      These factors combined means that Scala.js has to put in extra effort to optimize the code to reduce it's size at compile-time.
-
-    @sect{Raw Verbosity}
-      @p
-        Scala.js compiles to Javascript source code, while Scala-JVM compiles to Java bytecode. Java bytecode is a binary format and thus somewhat optimized for size, while Javascript is textual and is designed to be easy to read and write by hand.
-      @p
-        What does these mean, concretely? This means that a symbol marking something, e.g. the start of a function, is often a single byte in Java bytecode. Even more, it may not have any delimiter at all, instead the meaning of the binary data being inferred from its position in the file! On the other hand, in Javascript, declaring a function takes a long-and-verbose @hl.javascript{function} keyword, which together with peripheral punctuation (@code{.}, @code{ = }, etc.) often adds up to tens of bytes to express a single idea.
-      @p
-        What does this mean concretely? This means that expressing the same meaning in Javascript usually takes more "raw code" than expressing the same meaning in Java bytecode. Even though Java bytecode is relatively verbose for a binary format, it still is significantly more concise the Javascript, and it shows: the Scala standard library weighs in at a cool 6mb on Scala-JVM, while it weighs 20mb on Scala.js.
-      @p
-        All things being equal, this would mean that Scala.js would have to work harder to keep down code-size than Scala-JVM would have to. Alas, not all other things are equal.
-
-    @sect{Browsers Performance}
-      @p
-        Without any optimization, a naive compilation to Scala.js results in an executable (Including the standard library) weighing around 20mb. On the surface, this isn't a problem: runtimes like the JVM have no issue with loading 20mb of Java bytecode to execute; many large desktop applications weigh in the 100s of megabytes while still loading and executing fine.
-      @p
-        However, the web browser isn't a native execution environment; loading 20mb of Javascript is sufficient to heavily tax even the most modern web browsers such as Chrome and Firefox. Even though most of the code comprises class and method definitions that never have their contents executed, loading such a heavy load into e.g. Chrome makes it freeze for 5-10 seconds initially. Even after that, even after the code has all been parsed and isn't been actively executed, having all this Javascript makes the browser sluggish for up to a minute before the JIT compiler can speed things up.
-      @p
-        Overall, this means that you probably do not want to work with un-optimized Scala.js executables. Even for development, the slow load times and initial sluggishness make testing the results of your hard-work in the browser a frustrating experience. But that's not all...
-
-    @sect{Deployment Size}
-      @p
-        Scala.js applications often run in the browser. Not just any browser, but the browsers of your users, who had come to your website or web-app to try and accomplish some task. This is in stark contrast the Scala-JVM applications, which most often run on servers: servers that you own and control, and can deploy code to at your leisure.
-
-      @p
-        When running code on your own servers in some data center, you often do not care how big the compiled code is: the Scala standard library is several (6-7) megabytes, which added to your own code and any third-party libraries you're using, may add up to tens of megabytes, maybe a hundred or two if it's a relatively large application. Even that pales in comparison to the size of the JVM, which weighs in the 100s of megabytes.
-      @p
-        Even so, you are deploying your code on an machine (virtual or real) which has several gigabytes of memory and 100s of gigabytes of disk space. Even if the size of the code makes deployment slower, you only deploy fresh code a handful of times a day at most, and the size of your executable typically does not worry you.
-      @p
-        Scala.js is different: it runs in the browsers of your users. Before it can run in their browser, it first has to be downloaded, probably over a connection that is much slower than the one used to deploy your code to your servers or data-center. It probably is downloaded thousands of times per day, and every user which downloads it must pay the cost of waiting for it to finish downloading before they can take any actions on your website.
-
-      @p
-        A typical website loads ~100kb-1mb of Javascript, and 1mb is on the heavy side. Most Javascript libraries weigh in on the order of 50-100kb. For Scala.js to be useful in the browser, it has to be able to compare favorably with these numbers.
-
-    @hr
+@p
+  Scala.js is implemented as a compiler plugin in the Scala compiler. Despite this, the overall process looks very different from that of a normal Scala application. This is because Scala.js optimizes for the size of the compiled executable, which is something that Scala-JVM does not usually do.
 
-    @p
-      Thus, while on Scala-JVM you typically have executables that (including dependencies) end up weighing 10s to 100s of megabytes, Scala.js has a much tighter budget. A hello world Scala.js application weighs in at around 100kb, and as you write more code and use more libraries (and parts of the standard library) this number rises to the 100s of kb. This isn't tiny, especially compared to the many small Javascript libraries out there, but it definitely is much smaller than what you'd be used to on the JVM.
-
-  @sect{Whole Program Optimizaton}
-    @p
-      At a first approximation, Scala.js achieves its tiny executables by using whole-program optimization. Scala-JVM, like Java, allows for separate compilation: this means that after compilation, you can combine your compiled code with code compiled separately, which can interact with the code you already compiled in an ad-hoc basis: code from both sides can call each others methods, instantiate each others classes, etc. without any limits.
+@sect{Whole Program Optimizaton}
+  @p
+    At a first approximation, Scala.js achieves its tiny executables by using whole-program optimization. Scala-JVM, like Java, allows for separate compilation: this means that after compilation, you can combine your compiled code with code compiled separately, which can interact with the code you already compiled in an ad-hoc basis: code from both sides can call each others methods, instantiate each others classes, etc. without any limits.
 
-    @p
-      Even things like package-private do not help you: Java packages are separate-compile-able too, and multiple compilation runs can dump things in the same package! You may think that private members and methods may be some salvation, but the Java ecosystem typically relies heavily on reflection, which depends on the fact that these private things remain exactly as-they-are.
+  @p
+    Even things like package-private do not help you: Java packages are separate-compile-able too, and multiple compilation runs can dump things in the same package! You may think that private members and methods may be some salvation, but the Java ecosystem typically relies heavily on reflection, which depends on the fact that these private things remain exactly as-they-are.
 
-    @p
-      Overall, this makes it difficult to do any meaningful optimization: you never know whether or not you can eliminate a class, method or field. Even if it's not used anywhere you can see, it could easily be used by some other code compiled separately, or accessed through reflection.
+  @p
+    Overall, this makes it difficult to do any meaningful optimization: you never know whether or not you can eliminate a class, method or field. Even if it's not used anywhere you can see, it could easily be used by some other code compiled separately, or accessed through reflection.
 
-    @p
-      With Scala.js, we have decided to forgo reflection, and forgo separate compilation, in exchange for smaller executables. This is made easier by the fact that the pure-Scala ecosystem makes little use of reflection overall. Thus, at the right before shipping your Scala.js app to your users, the Scala.js optimizer gathers up all your Scala.js code, determines which things are used and which are not, and eliminates all the un-used classes/methods/variables. This allows us to achieve a much smaller code size than is possible with reflection/separate-compilation support. Furthermore, because we forgo these two things, we can perform much more aggressive inlining and other compile-time optimizations than is possible with Scala-JVM, further reducing code size and improving performance.
+  @p
+    With Scala.js, we have decided to forgo reflection, and forgo separate compilation, in exchange for smaller executables. This is made easier by the fact that the pure-Scala ecosystem makes little use of reflection overall. Thus, at the right before shipping your Scala.js app to your users, the Scala.js optimizer gathers up all your Scala.js code, determines which things are used and which are not, and eliminates all the un-used classes/methods/variables. This allows us to achieve a much smaller code size than is possible with reflection/separate-compilation support. Furthermore, because we forgo these two things, we can perform much more aggressive inlining and other compile-time optimizations than is possible with Scala-JVM, further reducing code size and improving performance.
 
-    @p
-      It's worth noting that such optimizations exist as an option on the JVM aswell: @lnk("Proguard", "http://proguard.sourceforge.net/") is a well known library for doing similar DCE/optimization for Java/Scala applications, and is extensively used in developing mobile applications which face similar "minimize-code-size" constraints that web-apps do. However, the bulk of Scala code which runs on the server does not use these tools.
+  @p
+    It's worth noting that such optimizations exist as an option on the JVM aswell: @lnk("Proguard", "http://proguard.sourceforge.net/") is a well known library for doing similar DCE/optimization for Java/Scala applications, and is extensively used in developing mobile applications which face similar "minimize-code-size" constraints that web-apps do. However, the bulk of Scala code which runs on the server does not use these tools.
 
 @sect{How Compilation Works}
   @p
@@ -227,3 +175,11 @@
 
     @p
       Empirically, running GCC on the output of the optimizer produces the smallest output blobs: ~150-400kb, significantly smaller than the output of running either of them alone, and so that is what we do. This takes 5-10 seconds to run, which makes it somewhat slow for iterative development, so it's typically only run right before final testing and deployment. This corresponds to the @code{fullOptJS} command in SBT.
+
+@hr
+
+@p
+  This hopefully has given a good overview of how the Scala.js compilation pipeline works. The pipeline and optimizer is a work-in-progress, and is changing all the time in an attempt to achieve ever-smaller executables and ever-faster code.
+
+@p
+  This whole chapter has been focused on the @i{what} but not the @i{why}. The chapter on @sect.ref{Scala.js' Design Space} contains a section which talks about @sect.ref("Small Executables", "why we care so much about small executables").
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