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Testing Firefox more efficiently with machine learning
- trulyme 5y ago> ... our CI still runs around 10 compute years per day! Am I reading this correctly? They were using 3650+ machines continuously just for CI?
- vletal 5y agoI hope that incremental complication will get to a point for some languages where a significant portion of this could be cached.
- moelf 5y agomore like 3650 cores/threads
- Thev00d00 5y agoCompiling C++ and Rust takes a lot of cycles
- glandium 5y agoCompiling is actually is tiny part of what runs on CI.
- dralley 5y agoI have to imagine that the vast majority of the CI time is spent rendering HTML and executing javascript on a wide variety of hardware and software combinations, and has nothing to do with compiling. Even the simplest possible support matrix would look like this: MacOSX ===> Monterray, Big Sur, Catalina ===> x86, Aarch64 Windows ===> 10, 11 ===> x64, Aarch64 ===> Intel CPU $(flavors), AMD CPU $(flavors) ===> Nvidia GPU $(flavors), AMD GPU $(flavors), Intel GPU $(flavors) And that's excluding Linux where the combinations get even crazier
- jcranmer 5y agoThe builds take about 10-20 minutes wallclock time, depending on platform. Each test job generally takes at least that long, and this is after being split into many, many, many jobs to make it go faster.
- anarazel 5y agoMultiple cores make that a lot less ridiculous... And tend to easily be usable do accelerate compilation and running parallel tests.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- theknocker 5y agoReally? They actually still test Firefox?
- gostsamo 5y agoNeeds 2020 in the title.
- kingcharles 5y agoComing from the 1980s where many apps were written by a single person with no source control and the only test performed was "does it compile?" to the point where you need ML just to figure out what the hell you need to test completely blows my mind. Also, it makes me cry.
- scoopertrooper 5y agoThe first plane was largely built out bicycle parts by two mechanics, they tested it by jumping in, starting the motor, and hoping for the best. Modern planes are built using a supply chain that spans the globe and tested against millions of different criteria years before they even roll on to the runway. As technology progresses, we trade capability for complexity.
- dgoldstein0 5y agoA lot of the reason for the aerospace "spans the globe" supply chain is politics - e.g. it's easier to convince other countries to buy Boeing planes, if they also supply parts for them. This is especially the case in Europe, as the main competing option is Airbus
- dmos62 5y agoThat's a good point. Is it politics or economics though?
- taeric 5y agoTo be fair, the difference in capabilities between the first and the later airplanes in stark. Not that browsers haven't progressed. They have. Not entirely sure it is in the same vein, though.
- makeitdouble 5y agoCurrent browsers are on the same level as entire operating systems. I'd say the capability jump is on pretty much on par.
- dado3212 5y agoSimilar post from FB from 2018 - https://engineering.fb.com/2018/11/21/developer-tools/predictive-test-selection/ https://engineering.fb.com/2018/11/21/developer-tools/predic..., and a more recent one (though just the raw technical paper) from 2020 - https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Predictive-Test-Selection.pdf https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Predictiv....