Lumiera
The new emerging NLE for GNU/Linux

Terminology

Layer

A conceptual realm within the application in order to group related topics and to build high-level structures in terms of low-level structures. Layers are located above/below each other and may depend solely on lower layers. The Application may be operated in a partial layer configuration with only some lower layers present. Each layer deals with distinct topics and has its own style. In Lumiera, we distinguish three layers

  • Stage Layer → Interaction

  • Steam Layer → Processing

  • Vault Layer → Data manipulation

Subsystem

A runtime entity which serves as anchor point and framework to maintain a well defined lifecycle. While layers are conceptual realms, subsystems can actually be started and stopped, and their dependencies are represented as data structure. A subsystem typically starts one or several primary components, which might spawn a dedicated thread and instantiate further components and services.

Service

A component within some subsystem is called a Service

  • provided that it exposes an interface with an associated contract (informal rules about usage pattern and expectations)

  • and given that it accepts invocations from arbitrary other components without mutual interdependency or hard coded knowledge about that other part.

The service lifecycle is tied to the lifecycle of the related subsystem; whenever the subsystem is “up and running”, any contained services can be accessed and used. Within Lumiera, there is no service broker or any similar kind of elaborate service discovery — rather, services are accessed by name, where “name” is the type name of the service interface.

Dependency

A usage relation at implementation level and thus a local prerequisite of an individual component. A dependency is something we need in order to complete the task at hand, yet a dependency lies beyond that task and is satisfied by means outside the scope and theme of this actual task. Consequently, a dependency is not introduced or provided by the local task or part of the task, rather the task at hand is the reason why some other entity dealing with it needs to request or pull that dependency in to accomplish the task at hand. So essentially, dependencies are accessed on-demand. Dependencies might be satisfied by other components or services, and typically the user (consumer) of a dependency just relies on the corresponding interface and remains agnostic with respect to the dependency’s actual implementation, data or lifecycle details.

Subsystems

As a coherent part of the application, a subsystem can be started into running state. Several subsystems can reside within a single layer, which leads to rather tight coupling. We do not define boundaries between subsystems in a strict way (as we do with layers) — rather some component is associated with a subsystem when it relies on services of the subsystem to be “just available”. However, the grouping into subsystems is often also a thematic one, and related to a specific abstraction level. To give an example, the Player deals with calculation streams, while the engine handles individual render jobs, which together form a calculation stream. So there is a considerable grey area in between. Any code related with defining and then dispatching frame jobs needs at least some knowledge about the presence of calculation streams; yet it depends and relies on the scheduling service of the engine. In the end, it remains a question of architecture to keep those dependency chains ordered in a way to form a one-way route: when we start the engine, it must not instantiate a component which requires the player in order to be operative. Yet we can not start the player without having started the engine beforehand; if we do, its services will throw exceptions on first use, due to missing dependencies.

However, subsystems as such are not dynamically configured. This was a clear cut design decision (and the result of a heated debate within the Lumiera team at that time). We do not expect to load just some plug-in dynamically, inserted via an UI-action at runtime, which then installs a new subsystem and hooks it into the existing architecture. The flexibility lies in what we can do with the contents of the session — yet the application itself is not conceived as set of Lego™ bricks. Rather, we identify a small number of coherent parts of the application, each with its own theme, style, relations and contingencies.

Engine

The Engine performs small pieces of work known as render jobs, oriented towards a deadline, without much knowledge about the purpose of those jobs, or their further interconnections. And thus the purpose of the Engine Subsystem is to provide a thread pool and activate the scheduling mechanism. Consequently, this subsystem belongs into the »Vault Layer«

this part of the system is barely drafted as of 2020

Player

The PlayOut Subsystem is located above the Engine and belongs into the »Steam Layer« — and contrary to the Engie (which handles individual jobs), the player creates and organises calculation streams.

as of 2020, the actual components to form the player need to be worked out
however, a fair amount of the services for dispatching streams into jobs has been prototyped

Session

The user performs editing activities within the »Session« — which is a data structure with associated methods for manipulation. There is a Session object and a SessionManager to load and save session data and conduct the session lifecycle. However, all of this needs to be distinguished from the Session Subsystem — which in essence is a dispatcher thread to receive, enqueue and finally trigger the session commands, as sent from the GUI or the script runner. These activities are conducted and controlled by the SteamDispatcher, which also cares for triggering the Builder, whenever new commands have been dispatched. Moreover, when instantiating the DispatcherLoop, also the SessionCommand façade is opened, which is the primary »Steam Layer« interface.
[ Note the relation between Session-the-datastructure and Session-the-subsystem is rather indirect: the dispatching of commands is blocked, unless there is also a session-datastructure loaded and fully configured. However, a running dispatcher loop is not a prerequisite for opening a session — just without a running dispatcher, commands will queue up and nothing else will happen.]

as of 2020, this subsystem is operative and commands can be dispatched
…while the session data structure as such is mostly still a skeleton…

User Interface

The Lumiera GUI is loaded as self-contained plug-in, which is the task of the GUI Subsystem. As can be expected, this is a rather convoluted process, while the actual name of the UI plug-in module to load is configured in the setup.ini, which has been evaluated earlier, in the application init phase. However, as it stands, Lumiera is built with a GTK-3 interface, and within the corresponding plug-in module gtk_gui.lum, the class GtkLumiera serves as top-level guard to carry on all further activities, when triggered from within the subsystem lifecycle to run in a dedicated GUI thread. It will establish the UI backbone by activating the UI-Bus and building the UI Manager controlling the UI global context. After these systems are established and connected, the GTK windows can be created and finally control is handed over to the GTK (GIO) event loop. Whenever this loop terminates, be it regularly, or by exception, application shutdown is initiated.

The GUI Subsystem is special, insofar it not only attaches to the session interface, but also opens a Layer separation interface oriented downwards, to be used by the lower layers. This interface — known as GUI Notification façade — serves to populate the UI with actual content, to mark and animate the tangible elements visible to and manipulated by the user in turn. It is outfitted with a cross-thread dispatcher mechanism, to forward any invocation as message onto the UI-Bus. This setup allows the lower layers to address the tangible parts in the UI based on their ID, which previously was given alongside with the content when populating the structures.

as of 2020, this backbone is established and connected in both directions
…while the large part of the actual widgets still remains to be built…

Script Runner

One of the most fundamental design decisions for Lumiera is that everything can be done without GUI. Conceptually, this would allow to instantiate a script execution environment with appropriate bindings, either to conduct operations on an existing session, or to build and render a session from scratch. Alternatively, also a CLI-style shell-like interface is conceivable.

this is a concept without any detailed planning as of 2020

Net Node

In variation to the script runner concept, it is conceivable to send instructions to a Lumiera instance over the net. Expanding on that idea, it would be possible to define a protocol to distribute the session definitions to slave nodes and then to launch distributed render tasks. Since Lumiera is built as a self-contained bundle, it is well suited to run within a containerised environment. However, in the light of current trends towards container orchestration frameworks like Kubernetes, we should refrain from building to much process management functionality into the application itself.

this is a mere idea, and certainly not a priority as of 2020

Lifecycle

Dependencies and abstraction through interfaces are ways to deal with complexity getting out of hand. When done well, we can avoid adding accidental complexity — but essential complexity as such can not be removed, yet with the help of abstractions it can be raised to another level.
[Irony tags here. There is a lot of hostility towards abstractions, because it is quite natural to conflate the abstraction with the essential complexity it has to deal with. It seems compelling to kill the abstraction, in the hope to kill the complexities as well — a tremendously effective attitude, as it turns out, especially in practice…]
 When components express their external needs by depending on an interface, the immediate tangling at the code level is resolved. However, someone needs to implement that interface, and this other entity needs to be available. The problem has been shifted, since it is now an architecture level challenge to get those dependency chains satisfied. A clever way to circumvent this problem rather then to deal with it explicitly, is to rely on a lifecycle with several phases. This is the idea behind the subsystems and the subsystem runner.

  1. First we define an ordering between the subsystems. The most basic subsystem (the Engine) is started first.

  2. Within a subsystem, components may be mutually dependent. However, we establish a new rule, dictating that during the startup phase only local operations within a single component are allowed. Each component must to be written in such a way, not to rely on the help of anything “remote” in order to get its inner workings up and ready. The component may rely on its members and on other services it created itself, or which it owns and manages.

  3. However, sometimes we do need to rely on a more low-level service in another subsystem or in the application core.
    [A typical example would be the reliance on threading, locking or application configuration.]
     — which then creates a hard dependency on architecture level

  4. Moreover, we ensure that all operational activity is generated by actual work tasks, and that such tasks in turn may be initiated solely through official interfaces. Such interfaces are to be opened explicitly at the end of the startup phase.

  5. In operational mode, any part of the system can now assume for its dependencies to be “just available”.

  6. And finally we establish a further rule to disallow extended clean-up. Everything must be written in a way such that when a task is done, it is really done and settled. (Obviously there are some fine points to consider here, like caching or elaborate buffer and I/O management). The rationale is that after leaving the operational phase at the end of main() the application is able to unwind in any arbitrary way.

The problem with emergencies

This concept has a weak spot however: A catastrophic failure might cause any subsystem to break down immediately. The handler within the subsystem’s primary component will hopefully detect the corresponding exception and signal emergency to the subsystem runner. Yet the working services of that subsystem are already gone at that point. And even before other subsystems might get the (emergency) shutdown trigger, some working parts may be failing catastrophically due to their dependencies being dragged away suddenly.

Lumiera is not written for exceptional resilience or high availability. Our attitude towards such failures can be summarised as “Let it crash”. And this is another rationale for the ruling against extended clean-up. Any valuable work done by the user should be accepted and recorded persistently right away. Actions on the session are logged, like in a database. The user may still save snapshots, but basically any actual change is immediately recorded persistently. And thus we may crash without remorse.

Static initialisation and shutdown

A lot of fine points can be made about when precisely static objects in C++ will be initialised or destroyed. However, anything beyond the scope of main() is not meant to be used for regular application code. Extended initialisation, dependency management and decommissioning — when actually necessary — should be part of the application code proper.
[this is established “best practice” for good reasons. The interplay of static lifespan, various translation units and even dynamically loaded libraries together with shared access tends to becomes intricate and insidious easily. And since, in theory, any static function could use some static variable residing in another translation unit, it is always possible to construct a situation where objects are accessed after being destroyed. Typically such objects do not even look especially “dead”, since the static storage remains in place and still holds possibly sane values. Static (global) variables, like raw pointers, allow to subvert the deterministic automatic memory management, which otherwise is one of the greatest strengths of C++. Whenever we find ourselves developing extended collaborative logic based on several statics, we should consider to transform this logic into regular objects, which are easier to test and to reason about. If it really can not be avoided to use such units of logic from a static context, it should at least be packaged as a single object, plus we should ensure this logic can only be accessed through a regular (non static) object as front-end. Packaged this way, the most common and dangerous pitfalls with statics can be avoided.]
 And since Lumiera indeed allows for lazily initialised dependencies, we establish the policy that destructors must not rely on dependencies. In fact, they should not do any tangible work at all, beyond releasing other resources.

Lifecycle Events

The Application as a whole conducts a well defined lifecycle; whenever transitioning to the next phase, a Lifecycle Event is issued. Components may register a notification hook with the central Lifecycle Manager (see include/lifecycle.h) to be invoked whenever a specific event is emitted. The process of registration can be simplified by planting a static variable of type lumiera::LifecycleHook.

Warning A callback enrolled this way needs to be callable at the respective point in the lifecycle, otherwise the application will crash.
ON_BASIC_INIT

Invoked as early as possible, somewhere in the static initialisation phase prior to entering main(). In order to install a callback hook for this event, the client must plant a static variable somewhere.

AppState

This is the Lumiera »Application Object«. It is a singleton, and should be used by main() solely. While not a lifecycle event in itself, it serves to bring up some very fundamental application services:

  • the plug-in loader

  • the application configuration

After starting those services within the AppState::init() function, the event ON_GLOBAL_INIT is emitted.

ON_GLOBAL_INIT

When this event occurs, the start-up phase of the application has commenced. The command line was already parsed and the basic application configuration is loaded, but the subsystems are not yet initialised.

Subsys::start()

By evaluation of the command line, the application object determines what subsystems actually need to be started; those will receive the start() call, prompting them to enter their startup phase, to instantiate all service objects and open their business façade when ready

ON_SESSION_START

When this hook is activated, the session implementation facilities are available and the corresponding interfaces are already opened and accessible, but the session itself is completely pristine and empty. Basic setup of the session can be performed at that point. Afterwards, the session contents will be populated.

ON_SESSION_INIT

At this point, all specific session content and configuration has already be loaded. Any subsystems in need to build some indices or to establish additional wiring to keep track of the session’s content should register here.

ON_SESSION_READY

Lifecycle hook to perform post loading tasks, which require an already completely usable and configured session to be in place. When activated, the session is completely restored according to the defaulted or persisted definition, and any access interfaces are already opened and enabled. Scripts and the GUI might even be accessing the session in parallel already. Subsystems intending to perform additional processing should register here, when requiring fully functional client side APIs. Examples would be statistics gathering, validation or auto-correction of the session’s contents.

ON_SESSION_CLOSE

This event indicates to cease any activity relying on an opened and fully operative session. When invoked, the session is still in fully operative state, all interfaces are open and the render engine is available. However, after issuing this event, the session shutdown sequence will be initiated, by detaching the engine interfaces and signalling the scheduler to cease running render jobs.

ON_SESSION_END

This is the point to perform any state saving, deregistration or de-activation necessary before an existing session can be brought down. When invoked, the session is still fully valid and functional, but the GUI/external access has already been closed. Rendering tasks might be running beyond this point, since the low-level session data is maintained by reference count.

Subsys::triggerShutdown()

While not a clear cut lifecycle event, this call prompts any subsystem to close external interfaces and cease any activity. Especially the GUI will signal the UI toolkit set to end the event loop and then to destroy all windows and widgets.

ON_GLOBAL_SHUTDOWN

Issued when the control flow is about to leave main() regularly to proceed into the shutdown and unwinding phase. All subsystems have already signalled termination at that point. So this is the right point to perform any non-trivial clean-up, since, on a language level, all service objects (especially the singletons) are still alive, but all actual application activity has ceased.

ON_EMERGENCY_EXIT

As notification of emergency shutdown, this event is issued instead of ON_GLOBAL_SHUTDOWN, whenever some subsystem collapsed irregularly with a top-level exception.

Note all lifecycle hooks installed on those events are blocking. This is intentionally so, since any lifecycle event is a breaking point, after which some assumptions can or can not be made further on. However, care should be taken not to block unconditionally from within such a callback, since this would freeze the whole application. Moreover, implementers should be careful not to make too much assumptions regarding the actual thread of invocation; we only affirm that it will be that specific thread responsible for bringing the global lifecycle ahead at this point.