[WIP] Limit thread focus loop by time, not threads.

[ryneeverett]

Resolve #1518. The problem that search_threads_rebuild_limit tries to solve is UI responsiveness, so the relevant thing to limit is time, not loops.

Next steps if this approach is accepted:

• Must: Deprecate search_threads_rebuild_limit -- Has a process been developed for option deprecation/removal?
• Maybe: Add a configuration option for the timeout. Personally I don't think this is necessary because unlike the previous approach this is not relative to the user's processor and inbox size. It's always something that can be added if a need arises.
• Maybe: Execute consume_pipe_until in a separate thread, sleep for the timeout, and then kill the thread. This would eliminate the wasteful clock checking every loop but I'm doubtful it's actually more performant.

[ryneeverett]

@lenormf Any thoughts on this proposal? TLDR: I don't think unlimited search_threads_rebuild_limit is an ideal default but it seems that limiting by time is more helpful and relativizes the limitation so that a reasonable default can be chosen.

[lenormf]

I don't think using time as a metric explicitly is a good thing:

• it's always cause for arguments when setting default values (3s is a lot to some users, nothing to others etc.)
• it performs an extra system call, which ironically is slow
• it's redundant, since users already deal with time when setting the count limit to recover focus - they will set a value according to how fast their system can handle a given amount of messages

[ryneeverett]

Thanks for the feedback.

I believe this approach better addresses the variability of preferences by removing the variability of performance as a source of disagreement. The current default blocks for several minutes for me and is presumably nothing for you. Consider this an argument. :)

As for redundancy, my proposal is to eliminate the count limit setting. Furthermore, assuming a user did want a 3 second timeout, if they had multiple machines they have to configure them differently to accommodate different performance specs.

If performance is a concern I can do some testing with different approaches but I probably wont expend the effort unless or until performance is the only concern. If I'm correct in my belief that this feature will break alot out of the box for many users, I can't see performance as a compelling reason to reject this change.