GHOP patch to the modules page which shows how much memory is in use

merlinofchaos: webchick: I finally came up with a ghop idea. It just hit me today, in fact.
[8:43pm] webchick: merlinofchaos, oooo!!
[8:43pm] webchick: do tell.
[8:43pm] merlinofchaos: webchick: We have ghop kids doing patches, right?
[8:43pm] webchick: Yep. And in many cases they're smarter than me.
[8:44pm] merlinofchaos: webchick: Ok, how about a patch to the modules page which shows how much memory is in use versus your site's maximum memory configuration; and adds a line to the .info file where a module can declare how much memory it needs (and have it default to a sane value).
[8:44pm] merlinofchaos: I did enough research into PHP's memory functions to know this is all very feasible
[8:44pm] slantview: maybe just add that to views
[8:44pm] merlinofchaos: And it'd make a good UI improvement because SO MANY PEOPLE get burned by the PHP memory limit.
[8:45pm] ben-agaric: merlinofchaos: sweet
[8:45pm] webchick: merlinofchaos, I think that sounds great. Could you write it up in task form? http://code.google.com/p/google-highly-open-participation-drupal/wiki/HowToWriteAGoodTask
[8:45pm] webchick: then I can handle adding it to Google, creating an issue for it, etc.
[8:46pm] slantview: how do kids get involved in the ghop?
[8:46pm] slantview: is there a signup site somewhere?
[8:46pm] webchick: slantview, They claim a task.
[8:46pm] webchick: yep...
[8:46pm] slantview: that is so cool
[8:47pm] webchick: http://code.google.com/opensource/ghop/2007-8/
[8:47pm] webchick: there.
[8:47pm] webchick: took me WAY too long to find that.
[8:47pm] webchick: ALso, these students are fricking rad, btw.
[8:47pm] webchick: See http://webchick.net/node/10
[8:47pm] • merlinofchaos admits he doesn't want to devote a lot of his own time to this (in fact, I did the research while avoiding doing something else I really should've been doing) so doesn't want to put himself as task owner. Or really figure out what resources are necessary etc.
[8:47pm] webchick: that's a list of tasks that were accomplished in the first week.
[8:47pm] slantview: how does one somewhat adult help out?
[8:47pm] webchick: merlinofchaos, ok then I can't add it because I certainly don't have bandwidth to take that on
[8:48pm] webchick: Any other takers??
[8:48pm] • merlinofchaos nods.
[8:48pm] webchick: Either that, or if we had a reliable taker for the mundane "status switching" kind of crap, I could do more actual mentoring rather than spending 4+ hours a day in Google's task tracker.
[8:48pm] merlinofchaos: On the plus side, I am making cookies. The house is about to get Very Full, for Gramma is bringing the nieces for a few days.
[8:48pm] webchick: Mmmm
[8:49pm] webchick: slantview, There are basically three ways: 1) propose and write up new tasks, 2) help review students' work, 3) offer to help out with boring admin stuff.
[8:49pm] merlinofchaos: Yes, working from home with THREE kids (and a gramma) should be [ a) more b) less c) explode ] interesting than working from home with just one.
[8:49pm] mfer left the chat room.
[8:49pm] ben-agaric: I'll take it. Where should we review their patches/questions?
[8:49pm] ezyang: merlinofchaos: I've worked with PHP's memory functions before. I don't exactly see how you'd go about doing this
[8:49pm] webchick: ben-agaric, yay!!
[8:49pm] ben-agaric: I have even more things to avoid then merlinofchaos
[8:49pm] webchick: lol
[8:50pm] ezyang: While it's fairly simple to check how much memory is in use, the max memory that was used, and the max memory limit
[8:50pm] ezyang: What would the module's indication of memory mean?
[8:50pm] merlinofchaos: ezyang: Use ini_get() to figure out how much memory you have; use, uh, whichever one tells you how much memory you're using; and then take a wild guess at how much memory a module takes.
[8:50pm] webchick: ben-agaric, step 1: write up a "proper" task according to guidelines at http://code.google.com/p/google-highly-open-participation-drupal/wiki/HowToWriteAGoodTask
[8:50pm] webchick: ben-agaric, step 2: create an issue on drupal.org for it. Title it GHOP:
[8:50pm] slantview: merlinofchaos: have you ever used phpmyadmin?
[8:51pm] webchick: ben-agaric, step 3: Create a corresponding "official" task in Google's tracker: http://code.google.com/p/google-highly-open-participation-drupal/issues/entry
[8:51pm] webchick: But WARNING
[8:51pm] ezyang: merlinofchaos: The module usage estimates seem to be fairly arbitrary
[8:51pm] slantview: merlinofchaos: it has this neat thing where it stops before the php script times out by checking ini setttings for timeout
[8:51pm] webchick: Google's app sucks and you can't edit issues once thyey've been posted.
[8:51pm] webchick: so make sure you get it right first.
[8:51pm] ben-agaric: OK, so this is Drupal, system module.
[8:51pm] slantview: merlinofchaos: it might be cool to check timeouts too
[8:52pm] ezyang: Timeouts are even worse

merlinofchaos: ben-agaric ezyang: Even if you don't have each module provide a number, you can at least provide a warning about how close to your max memory you are and you should up it before enabling more modules or you could get a white screen.

merlinofchaos: Even that would be a major improvement.
ezyang: merlinofchaos: I have doubts about the efficacy of this. Enabling modules would simply involve parsing the PHP code and registering the hooks, etc
ezyang: Which does represent a sizable memory chunk
ezyang: But the module is more likely to run out while it's actually "doing" stuff
ezyang: merlinofchaos: Well, it's worth a shot.

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