VisualNli
VisualNli.exe is the WinForms-based graphical NL interactive compiler.
Code editing and syntax highlighting is done with SctinillaNET. Lexical analysis for syntax highlighting is provided by NL's own lexer (we set the Scintilla control's lexer to Lexer.Container and hook into the StyleNeeded for custom styling).
Bits of NL code are submitted interactively using CTRL+ENTER (if no code selected, then all the code is submitted, otherwise only the selected code is submitted). Resulting values are sent to the Watch tab's customized version of FsEye for visual inspection. Additionally stdout and stderr (including compiler error and warning messages) are redirected to the Output tab and stdin is received via a modal dialog prompt.
See https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AobG7wyRjKV9dEJTSnJZVWtOOFpkb0tuQkVaZ01peVE&usp=sharing
Files are under under samples dir.
All time measurements in milliseconds.
stats 3 and 4 are best controlled scenarios since they are nearly identical source code except for errors.
Parse and Semantic Analysis phases are the biggest bottlenecks. Lex and Indicator drawing are near-trivial. Semantic Analysis phase increases significantly when lots of errors. However, we were able to reduce it by about 50% by identifying some bottlenecks.
Semantic analysis on a file with about 8k lines is pretty fast when no errors (~200ms), but increases several times when many errors / warnings (about 2k). We were able to cut time by about 50% total with the following optimizations: 1) use optimized IntelliFactory.Printf drop-in replacement for F#'s notoriously slow kprintf (shaved off about 8%), 2) do not construct and pass StackTrace into CompilerMessage when not in DEBUG mode (about 40%).