Re: [linuxtools-dev] "TMF"

[Francois Chouinard <fchouinard@xxxxxxxxx>]

Daniel, Mathieu,

[1] About the TMF acronym

As Mathieu mentions correctly, TMF stands for "Tracing and Monitoring
Framework". It has been part of the Eclipse LTTng integration from the
start (2+ years now). In the context of Linux Tools, there is no
confusion about this TLA and we don't have plan to change it anytime
soon.

BTW, TMF is not and never has been part of TM, although we are
re-using a couple of components from that project for specific
purposes.

[2] About the TMF "confusion"

Following a question about parsing non-binary (text) traces with the
LTTng plugins, I pointed Chris to the custom text parser that TMF
happens to informally support. I can't speak for Chris but,
considering the ongoing e-mail exchange between him and my office
colleague about his issues, I don't think he was ever confused about
the meaning of TMF.

[3] About the proper usage of "LTTng"

Now for the philosophical question :-) Why do we refer to the "Eclipse
LTTng Integration" as "LTTng" in the scope of Linux Tools?

For the same reason the integration projects for GCov, GProf,
OProfile, Valgrind et al. don't call themselves "Eclipse XYZ
Integration". Eclipse *is* an integration platform and, in the case of
Linux Tools, many of the "tools" are really (great) front-ends for the
actual tools themselves. Ditto for LTTng.

I'm sorry if our usage of the term "LTTng" confuses the end-users and
generates undue traffic on the "real" LTTng mailing list. I wonder if
the Valgrind/OProfile maintainers have to endure a similar ordeal :-)


I hope this answers your questions/ concerns.

Best Regards,
/fc


On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Mathieu Desnoyers
<compudj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> * Thibault, Daniel (Daniel.Thibault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
>> -----Message d'origine-----
>> Objet : linuxtools-dev Digest, Vol 28, Issue 28
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 14:05:57 -0400
>> From: Francois Chouinard <fchouinard@xxxxxxxxx>
>> Subject: Re: [linuxtools-dev] Alternative LTTng TMF Eclipse Plugin Input Formats
>>
>> > [...] the User Guide is only for LTTng while this feature is part of
>> > the underlying framework (TMF) that is not yet split from LTTng. TMF is
>> > also the foundation for the upcoming GDB Tracepoints and UST (User
>> > Space Tracing) that haven't been released yet.
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > /fc
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> François and others: Please avoid using "TMF" for the Target
>> Management/Communication Framework,
>
> I think they use it for "Tracing and Monitoring Framework".
>
>> as it leads to utter confusion.  A
>> search of *.eclipse.org for "TMF" turns up *only* references to the
>> "Textual Modeling Framework".  The Target Management project refers to
>> itself as "TM", and to its communication framework as "TCF" (Target
>> Communication Framework).  I've taken to calling it "TM.TCF" to be
>> damn sure I'm understood.  The DSDP/TM.TCF/LTTng/LTTV/UST alphabet
>> soup is confusing enough as it is without making it ambiguous as well.
>
> Possibly the Eclipse website should be updated to reflect this, but TMF
> is the TLA that has been used by their team for the "Tracing and
> Monitoring Framework" for quite a while now. I really doubt that the
> developers of this project will stop using it at this point. See:
>
>  http://wiki.eclipse.org/Linux_Tools_Project/LTTng
>  http://www.eclipsecon.org/summiteurope2010/sessions/?page=sessions&id=1683
>
> On a similar note, I've seen on this mailing list that their project is
> being often referred to as "LTTng", which probably confuses end-users
> more than anything: the TMF LTTng plugin is actually the "LTTng
> integration" to Eclipse Linux Tools, meaning that it allows viewing
> traces taken by the LTTng and UST tracers in Eclipse. We had to update
> the lttng.org website to redirect users having questions about the
> LinuxTools LTTng integration to this mailing list.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Mathieu
>
>>
>> An example is in the same digest:
>> ------------------------------
>> Message: 3
>> Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 14:47:22 -0400
>> From: Chris Meek <cmeek@xxxxxxxxxx>
>> Subject: Re: [linuxtools-dev] Alternative LTTng TMF Eclipse Plugin Input Formats
>>
>> > Thank you for your response. I searched through the source code for the
>> > TMF plugin and found some files relating to a custom text parser input
>> > wizard. I tried enabling that wizard in the Extensions section of the
>> > Plugin.xml file. Then, after building and running the project, I went
>> > File > New > Other > TMF > Custom Text Parser. Unfortunately when I
>> > clicked next, I got a NullPointerException :(. I really thought this
>> > would work! Do you have any idea what could be the problem in this case?
>> > Or am I doing something wrong?
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Chris thought he was getting a trace input parser for TM.TCF but the "New: TMF" entry in Eclipse's File menu refers to the Textual Modeling Framework!
>>
>> Daniel U. Thibault
>> R & D pour la défense Canada - Valcartier (RDDC Valcartier) / Defence R&D Canada - Valcartier (DRDC Valcartier)
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>
> --
> Mathieu Desnoyers
> Operating System Efficiency R&D Consultant
> EfficiOS Inc.
> http://www.efficios.com
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-- 
Francois