Why do Cobalt Website Module builds take so long?

***Rant:***
Building Website locally with code analysis on takes 4+ minutes now days. When you finally check in to CI a single Website Platform build (not including products) can take 25+ minutes.
***:End Rant***

I am really just wondering why they have become so bad and if there is anything being done to bring the times down? For both local builds and code check-in builds / deploys.

Thanks,
Josh

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Accepted answers

Ron Burke

So I looked into this and as I suspected the bulk of the time is spent compiling views. I think we actually end up compiling the platform views twice. The first time we build them is when we build Cobalt.Website.Platform.Web, about 1.5 minutes of building that project is spent building the views. Then as a post build step of the WestlawNext.Web project I think we again building the views. About 1.8 minutes during the build of that project are spent on an Exec task which I think includes building all the views. A few months ago we added building the views as part of the Debug/Release builds. The reason we added building the views was to find coding issues in the views at build time rather than run time. This is especially helpful when we are making platform changes that could end up affecting views in multiple products. Note that all the tasks are not listed in the tables below, just the last few that take most of the time.

Times from Cobalt.Website.Platform.Web:

Time (ms)	Task	# of Calls
105	Copy	4
209	ResolveAssemblyReference	1
428	RemoveDir	2
3167	Csc	1
3454	StyleCopTask	1
15985	CodeAnalysis	1
90769	AspNetCompiler	1

Times from WestlawNext.Web:

Time (ms)	Task	# of Calls
332	ResolveAssemblyReferences	1
685	CoreCompile	1
850	StyleCop	1
5580	RunCodeAnalysis	1
108824	PostBuildEvent	1

All comments

Kevin Moore

Well... Running the builds with Code Analysis does a lot of things. It runs a full StyleCop analysis as well as a full Microsoft CA on literally thousands of files - and then after all that, we recently added a view verification so view failures won't make it to CI and break the environment. There are probably other things running as well as part of the post-build processes and I won't pretend to know them all.

I'd love it if the builds ran faster as well, but that means we have to remove something. If we remove one of the actual Code Analysis, then we end up with bad standards and inefficient code. If we remove the view verification, then we end up with broken environments when people don't verify their changes locally.

You could always try begging for a faster computer with a SSD, maybe (if you succeed, I may try and follow suit)?

Ryan Morlok

What are the current specs on the build machines?

Josh Harris

You make valid points Kevin its just getting to a point where it takes upwards of half a day to check in. As far as SSDs go, we ran some tests locally with Laptops 8GB RAM with SSDs, Desktops 8GB RAM with SSDs, iMac with 16GB of RAM and Desktops 8GB RAM without SSDs. The iMac seemed to be the only one with noticeably faster Website builds (with CA on).

James Greene

So maybe you need more RAM or to increase the size of your page file (basically virtual memory) on Windows?

Matt Boland

The platform web project is by far the worst project to build taking nearly 3 minutes of the total 5.5 minutes it takes me to build. Something about that code is causing the Code Analysis to take much longer than other projects.

The lines of code and cyclomatic complexity below were gathered by right clicking on the solution and clicking Calculate Code Metrics. The timings were gathered by Tools -> Options -> Projects and Solutions -> Build and Run and changing MSBuild project build output verbosity to Normal. This setting can be upped to Detailed and Diagnostics so perhaps if somebody has time, they can take an even closer look to see what is taking so long.

![Website Build Stats][1]

[1]: http://techoverflow.int.thomsonreuters.com/upfiles/WebsiteBuildStats.png

James Greene

Nice initial investigation, that does indeed seem strange.

Ron Burke

Time (ms)	Task	# of Calls
105	Copy	4
209	ResolveAssemblyReference	1
428	RemoveDir	2
3167	Csc	1
3454	StyleCopTask	1
15985	CodeAnalysis	1
90769	AspNetCompiler	1

Times from WestlawNext.Web:

Time (ms)	Task	# of Calls
332	ResolveAssemblyReferences	1
685	CoreCompile	1
850	StyleCop	1
5580	RunCodeAnalysis	1
108824	PostBuildEvent	1

Josh Harris

If we are compiling most of the same views twice is it possible to only compile the views once?

Ron Burke

Yes, we will be checking that change in to 20.7

Ron Burke

Website has now been changed to no longer build the platform views as part of the cobalt.website.platform.web project.

Anthony Foerster

Not an answer, but a workaround: you can always unload unit/integration test projects if you are just testing against the environment.

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