[Lazarus] Timing of all compiler options on slow machines

[Juha Manninen]

Attention waldo kitty and others with slow machines.

I added code for timing the reading of all compiler options and the
rendering the GUI for them. It shows a MessageBox after reading and
rendering.
It is enabled when Lazarus is built with define TimeAllCompilerOptions.
Go to Tools -> Configure "Build Lazarus"
There "Edit Defines", add TimeAllCompilerOptions, click OK, check the
newly added checkbox, and build Lazarus.

I am now testing with an old Pentium 2 machine, 233 MHz, 320 MB memory.
OS is latest PCLinuxOS with LXDE window manager.
This PC is truely slow in today's standards, yet Lazarus is still
quite usable there. Compilation of big projects takes time of course.
Clean build of Lazarus itself takes > half an hour.

Now testing the reading of all options from FPC in the "Other" page of
compiler options GUI:
In this slow machine the reading still takes less than a second!
Sometimes it takes only half a second.
In waldo kitty's faster machine it took much longer. It means its
Windows is badly screwed somehow.
The reading happens now when the "Other" page is opened for the first
time in a Lazarus session. It may be useless if the user does not
click the "All options" or "Defines" buttons at all. It does not
matter if the reading is fast. The benefit is that "All options" GUI
opens slightly faster because options are read already.
Anyway, I guess will move reading back to the all opts GUI window.

Rendering the GUI takes 9 seconds which is too much of course. It is
directly proportional to CPU speed (I think). I will work on the grid
GUI later.


Regards,
Juha


P.S.
Computers are truely getting faster! This 233 MHz Pentium 2 machine is
less than 20 years old (?) and was used for demanding CAD work in a
big company. I added memory later, it had maybe 256 MB then, or less.
When a designer got a faster 400 MHz P2 computer, people around the
company came to see it because it was so extremely fast.
It was ok for a CAD application then, why is it completely obsolete now?
Computers are now 1000 times faster than they were just a while ago.
Why programs are still slow? Why, oh why?