multiple medley instances on the same machine step on each other's lisp.virtualmem

[masinter]

it's easy to wind up starting multiple instances of medley. They can really interfere with each other writing lisp.virtualmem at SAVEVM time or LOGOUT etc. This isn't a problem with online (it's harder to get an online) or when it is only invoked manually.

People complain about Medley cluttering up their login directory...
also about time-machine backing up a vmem file if you write one every 10 minutes.

I'd like to get more frequent vmems to help us diagnose crashes.

There are some issues about having open files complain if you restart a vmem made when it was loading and you restart in a different directory.

shell commands inherit PWD from the launching shell rather than the lisp one.

[masinter]

i'm experimenting with a version of run-medley that takes a -timestamp option. When you specify -timesstamp, it will generate

lisp.virtualmem.220906222453 instead of plain 'lisp.virtualmem' (or whatever your -vmem was.)

when you start a run-medley without specifying a sysout to run, it will use the most recently written (using ls -t lisp.vmem*).

the idea is that each time you run-medley there's a unique lisp.vmem file for that run. (need to add a 1-second delay in cases where the lisp.vmem.220906... file already exists).

There should be some kind of automatic trim when you exit Lisp normally ? In the version-vmem branch.

https://github.com/Interlisp/medley/compare/master...version-vmem

not ready for prime time but wanted some ideas about how to approach the problem.

[masinter]

@fghalasz solved the problem anogher way (the --id flag o medley startup).