Report: upgrade to 1.2alpha and MagmaPreallocatedDictionary

> Hi All,  I wanted to let everyone know how it went. Environment: Linux
> Ubuntu 10.10, Seaside 3.0.2, Pharo 1.1.1.
>
> Monticello has not been updated with the latest Magma so I used the
> instructions Chris gave for loading the packages.  I duplicated the list
> as follows:
>
> First load WeakOrderedCollection.2.cs.gz included on email from Chris
> announcing release of Magma 1.2 alpha1 - November 11, 2010.
>
> Ma exception handling-cmm.37
> Ma base additions-cmm.187
> Ma proxy support-cmm.44
> Ma traverse object graphs-cmm.32
> MaFixedWidthReport-cmm.7
> Ma Statistics-cmm.24
> Ma object serialization-cmm.245
> Collections-BTree-lr.73
> Ma special collections-cmm.116
> Ma client server-cmm.217
> WriteBarrier-cmm.28
> Magma client-cmm.520
> Ma contextual search-cmm.35
> Magma server-cmm.418
> Ma Armored Code-cmm.149
> Ma Squeak domain-cmm.34
> Ma special collections tester-cmm.14
> Ma object serialization tester-cmm.33
> Magma tester-cmm.372
>
> Ran the upgrade on my existing database using instructions given by
> Chris in a previous email:
>
> please use the "Magma upgrader" package available on the
> "Magma tester" project of squeaksource.
>
> After loading it:
>
>  (MagmaUpgrader source: '/path/to/old/repository') compressTo:
> '/path/to/upgraded/repository'
>
> Results: Packages loaded and upgrade went without a hitch.
>
> MagmaPreallocatedDictionary was then implemented replacing a standard
> dictionary keyed by region with each region holding a dictionary keyed
> by record id.  My clients have to search a third party database with the
> results being updated with the data held in the magma database.
>
> The design was influenced by performance concerns. To reduce search time
> the client first selects a region and the dictionary associated with the
> region is loaded in effect loading only part of the database.  The third
> party data is acquired and the records are then matched by a unique id
> on the dictionary now loaded.  At this time there are only 30,000 region
> and record objects in the database (each object holds 10 fields
> containing strings and numbers totalling on average 200 characters).
> But with the standard dictionary loading the region dictionary took 7
> seconds.  After having implemented the MagmaPreallocatedDictionary the
> same operation takes LESS THAN A SECOND!  The delay is imperceptible by
> the user.  WOW, my next step is to test the performance by replacing the
> two tier dictionary to a single MagmaPreallocatedDicationary keyed on
> the record id.  And thanks to Chris's comments I will be implementing a
> MagmaCollection on the same objects for performing descriptions and
> range searches. I must say I am impressed by Magma's reliability and the
> speed is not a factor -- the bottleneck is JQuery rendering!  Thanks
> Chris.
>
> Tim
>
>
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