[Sugar-devel] Research: 0.84 Launcher Cost

[James Cameron]

G'day Dipanker,

My research was not intended to propose a design change.  I'm happy with
how the launcher appears, and I think it adds considerable value to the
learning experience of the child.  I'm slightly not happy with delaying
the startup of an activity, and I see that as a defect.

I don't believe the use of floating point is costly.  GTK+ uses floating
point extensively.  The time spent computing the sine function (in
__pulse_cb) is minimal compared to the rendering time (render_cairo).

A precalculated fix sine table could reduce the cost of the sine
function, if it were a problem, which it is not.

Reducing the amount of rendering may help, and that was what I proposed
in the patch thread just now.  But again, there's a drawback of caching.

Activity startup time is more of a concern to me.

You might wish to propose to the design team a configuration option that
will suppress the launcher so as to improve startup time.  I don't plan
to propose that.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/