Which is the best site to post a feature request for DrRacket?

Questions & Answers
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1

The title says it all.

2

Here is fine!

It is worth remembering that Quickscript is powerful and has access to lots of functionality.

Bw

Stephen

3

How about to just improve its performance, make it run better? that would be a very good feature,

I think its a nice IDE as it is, but I'm running it on a more than capable laptop HW with an i7 with 32GB RAM and it doesn't matter if its on Linux(even really slimmed down ones light on resources non-bloated distros like arch and slackware) or Windows 10 same results, its sluggish, it lags easily just open 3 tabs and each tab opens slow switching to each tab is also slow, even if each tab has way less than a 100 LOC, Infact I've tried it with barely 20 LOC , same results, there's noticeable lag just wtith opening 1 tab, not to mention scroll lag too,

it also easily eats RAM like a Java IDE(eclipse/netbeans/intellij), I don't even mind to give it more RAM if it would just run fine, I got plenty to spare, but the difference is those java IDEs do not lag with even way more LOC, while multitasking and they can run a lot of plugins and run fine, they all start up slow like DrRacket but once running its a different story, no disappearing text and icons and they run fine and these are bloated Java IDEs were comparing with but DrRacket doesn't even..., it cant compare for even the simplest things and I'm not running any plugins on DrRacket either, its the vanilla installation, yet it already runs slow it can only get worse adding plugins, so I don't even bother,

then it also flickers a lot with disappearing text and icons and this is just with DrRacket, opening the preferences menu is especially notorious in this it takes a long time and it flickers the most too and many things disappear, it doesn't happen with any GUI apps made in Racket, its just a DrRacket phenomenon, its a good thing I'm comfortable using EMACS so I just use that for Racket, but what about all the other people just starting out I think DrRacket would be useful for them, but not with the way it runs, I cant even recommend its use,

but I like to like DrRacket and would like to use it more, but its performance is really bad and I see many posts around the internet of people saying the same about it, even on other OSes like MAC OS X dated years ago from Racket BC to CS, I have Racket CS v8.5 the latest version installed its the same, so its not an isolated case but a long lingering issue, I really would like to use DrRacket more but its performance is deplorable and you cant say its my HW what with my laptop sporting an i7, everything runs fine and smooth on it except for DrRacket, I can shut down all the other apps and just run DrRacket and it still lags a lot and does all the issues I've mentioned, I say just improve the performance, that be a very good feature already for DrRacket.

4

I haven't had any of these performance issues, even on low-spec hardware like my Raspberry Pi 4 or in VM situations like WSL2 on Windows. Could you maybe post a video of the problems you're having?

3 Likes
5

Open a feature request issue on the DrRacket Github issue tracker.

Also, everything that @spdegabrielle said.

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vscode with the racket extension is pretty usable, though it doesn't jump to the line when there's an error among a few other things

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7

It is always worth assuming that people who complain usually have some real issues to report, but perhaps cannot express them clearly.

I don't use DrRacket myself, but I opened it out of curiosity to try some of the things @Racketeer mentioned, and immediately noticed that in Racket 8.5 the tabs flicker -- this is not a performance problem, but it can be easily confused with one, also this problem is new in Racket 8.5, since it does not happen in 8.4.

I created an issue here, along with videos illustrating the problem, but, are there any other real problems hiding in that message from @Racketeer ?

Alex.

3 Likes
8

I don’t use DrRacket as much because of exactly these issues I’ve mentioned, I've been using EMACS + Geiser and its been plenty fine and smooth in performance, as I’ve mentioned in another post, but flickering has been there along with all these issues at least for me they have been, I’ve upgraded(and even tried downgrading) every release from racket CS 8.0 to v8.5 it always had the flickering issue, every version I tried from the 8.x series, I've installed-uninstalled wiped out artifact leftovers from an uninstall and clean reinstalled, nothing helped changed things for the better, I’ve hoped for it to go away as I'd give it a go on newer versions and hope for better overall performance of which I did mention more than flickering text but also disappearing icons and scroll lag but not limited to, but to expound a bit more - tab lag, tab switch lag, first few new tabs created have a 2-3 second delay but it gets worse with more as more new tabs are opened too and just overall lag, easily slurping a lot of RAM but its not running any better and its not like I've got plenty going on in it,

so today I turned on DrDracket again this time, then I opened the preferences menu, this time I timed it, it actually took 15 seconds to open up while flickering, exited and repeated same 15 seconds then while cycling through the preferences sub menus it had plenty lag too, for example from font to switch to color tab and etc, it takes 5 seconds at least to switch to the next sub menu tab other times it takes longer, so the preferences menu lags easily and the most for me and the more activity I have in DrRacket the more LAG increases, that’s pretty bad considering this is not only an i7 gaming laptop with lots of RAM, SSD + nvidia graphics card, its capable of running graphics intensive 3D games and every single app and IDE I've tried even the most RAM hungry java IDEs and applications and they all run fine, I can have hundreds of tabs running on multiple browsers simultaneously like Chrome, Opera and Firefox at the same time with plenty plugins/extensions have a bunch of IDE running and etc, they all run smooth and still open all their preferences menu and not have to wait 10 or more seconds, its snappy immediate, but not in DrRacket,

GUI apps made in racket as I said run fine, no flickering either and snappy, its just a -> DrRacket phenomemon for me, its the only application that runs poorly out of all my installed applications, when I say poorly performing I mean as a collective of all the issues I've pointed out, not just flickering but of which LAG is a big part of,

if you do not consider flickering an issue as part of poor overall performance @alexh then definitely the -> LAG of which I've encountered all over DrRacket even when I'm not multitasking in it or doing much of anything in it, is, I dont know about you guys but I'd call the collective of all those issues bad performance, its an honest experience and I'm not dissing DrRacket out of spite or at all for that matter, as I said I like to like it, if it performed better I'd more likely prefer to use it more than even EMACS as it still has the best integration with the racket platform after all even compared to other currently better performing IDEs with racket support, but its just my experience with DrRacket and I don’t experience it in any other application even with bloated java IDEs(and I'm emphasizing with the java IDEs because they are bloated and eats lots of RAM easily but they run better than DrRacket), neither do I expect it because I'm not running it on lower end HW like an i3 or Intel core duo with 4GB RAM or less and even if I was, I wouldn’t expect an IDE like DrRacket to run badly at an i3 but maybe its debateable, but definitely it should not be for an i7,

DrRacket eats as much RAM as java IDEs but doesn’t run as well as them after its long startup time and DrRacket easily eats 600+MB-1.2GB RAM compare that to Racket on EMACS + Geiser I get no such issues and I can multitask and add all sorts of extensions and it runs at approx. 2-40MB RAM, around 300+MB if I run/test GUI apps, this is even in EMACS GUI mode and its smooth, no lag issues or flickering whatsoever, if EMACS is an unfair comparison then even ATOM/VSCODE/ECLIPSE/NETBEANS or better yet IntelliJ IDEA may start more or less as slow as DrRacket at start up and eat lots of RAM in fact more RAM initially at start up than DrRacket, but once running have none of those issues neither the lag especially working on simple things,

if any of you were in my shoes with my HW in comparison to that, is DrRacket not poorly performing? I'd use DrRacket more if it performed better overall, now I just use it for the most simplest of things when I start feeling more lag I exit, I wish I could use it for more than that, but from awhile ago after testing it out and suffering its lag issues the more and longer I used it well it even crashed, admittedly it has only crashed once, so could be a one off(but then again I don't stick around DrRacket long enough cause of the issues I'm talking about, who knows maybe it crash more if I use it more), but all those other issues, LAG, flickering, disappearing icons happens a lot, they are practically a constant experience or something I can expect when I use DrRacket.

1 Like
9

Please consider writing correctly punctuated text, as it becomes
vastly easier to read and follow. (For example, there are only 2
sentence-ending periods in your entire post. 2!)

10

Thanks for the report @Racketeer

I’m not able to reproduce at the moment but reports are most welcome as each improves the chance to reproduce and ultimately identify the issue.

I’d be interested if you get the same performance problems if you build racket from source on your machine, but that is time consuming so I understand if that isn’t something you are prepared to do at this stage.

Thank you again for the report.

Best wishes
Stephen