Re: [TECH TOPIC] Kernel documentation

[Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@oracle.com>]

(We already exchanged on this topic, but repeating it for the list:)

On 20/06/2023 21:30, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@intel.com> writes:
> 
>> It should be more feasible to build the documentation. Make it
>> faster,

When using PyPy instead of CPython to run Sphinx, I see a 22%
performance improvement on the kernel documentation, which is not
insignificant.

> A while back, I went into Sphinx with a hatchet and managed to take 
> about 20% off the build time.  The C domain stuff builds a data 
> structure of incredible complexity, then just tosses much of it
> away. I've never had the time to figure out why they do that or to
> try to get my hack job into a condition where I'd be willing to show
> it to my dog, much less the Sphinx developers.

I also profiled the documentation build some weeks ago and came to the
same conclusion: around 40% of the time is spent inside resolve_xref(),
the exact same C domain stuff you mentioned.

The gcc project/documentation has the same problem, albeit in the C++
domain code, there is an open ticket for it:

   https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/issues/10966

If we're really not using the functionality provided by the C domain
code, maybe instead of ripping it out we could provide something like a
conf.py toggle to disable it? (The idea being that the patch would be
smaller and more acceptable upstream...)


Vegard