Switch to Colors package (do not merge yet)

[timholy]

Replacement for #664. Do not merge until C-day.

The last commit is mostly for fun, experimenting with whether we can use more concretely-typed containers. This represents what should be a path towards performance improvements for Gadfly (but I haven't tested). If done well, the only potential cost I'm aware of might be increased compilation times under some circumstances. (EDIT: meaning, it might have to compile multiple type-stable versions of some methods, whereas formerly it used only one type-unstable version.)

[timholy]

Replaced by #667.

[timholy]

@dcjones, is this what you want here? Or is any Colorant OK?

[timholy]

Again, the test failure on release is not anything to worry about (yet), because the tagged version of Cairo forces Color to load and that causes confusion with Colors. On nightly, that's a very odd precompilation failure, one I once saw on my own machine but which went away with a newer version of julia (so I just assumed it was a bug that had already been fixed). CCing @vtjnash and @stevengj.

[stevengj]

@timholy, it looks like JuliaLang/julia#12508: DataArrays is not marked with __precompile__() and is apparently loaded (in non-precompiled form) by something in the package-test framework(?) before Gadfly and hence fails to load in its precompiled form when Gadfly is precompiled.

Solution: put __precompile__() in DataArrays.jl (assuming it is precompile-safe).

(You never saw it again because it only happens the first time something is precompiled.)

[stevengj]

Some of the test files have using RDatasets, DataArrays, Gadfly. Put Gadfly first and the problem should go away.

(But in general, whenever you are using a package X and are precompiling, it is best practice to file a PR/issue and get __precompile__() merged in package X. Not only will that avoid this problem, but it also verifies with the upstream package author that X is indeed precompilable.)

[timholy]

Thanks for looking, @stevengj!

[timholy]

@dcjones, if you need more time to review, I will push C-day back. Just let me know.

[dcjones]

This looks good to me. Actually, it seems pretty safe to merge this at any time. It works fine with pre-transition Cairo.

[timholy]

Thanks!

Combined testing here: https://travis-ci.org/timholy/Dummy.jl. Assuming this is on-track tomorrow, I'll merge.

[protogeezer]

What is the difference between “pre-transition” Ciaro and what’s coming?

On Aug 24, 2015, at 5:02 PM, Daniel C. Jones notifications@github.com wrote:

This looks good to me. Actually, it seems pretty safe to merge this at any time. It works fine with pre-transition Cairo.

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[timholy]

@dcjones was pointing out that he was able to make it work even without switching Cairo to Colors. But both have been switched now.