W8: Watching What Weaves Wildly-Wagging WWW - Michiaki Tatsubori

PHP compilers shootout

2010-03-20T00:42:00.001+09:00

Here is a fairly nice summary of recent PHP compilation technolgoies.

PHP compilers shootout

Today's Paper: Multiple Dispatch Study

2010-02-26T17:32:00.003+09:00

A paper in OOPSLA 2008, "Multiple Dispatch in Practice" has a very good introductory on multiple-dispatching, method implementation selection based on the runtime types of not only the first argument (this) but all the arguments.

Muschevich, et al., Multiple Dispatch in Practice, OOPSLA 2008 [EE]

In addition to an empirical study of the use of multiple dispatch in practice, the paper starts from a brief history and overview of multiple dispatch, which is brilliant.

Today's Book: The Art of Multiprocessor Programming

2009-01-06T11:51:00.001+09:00

The Art of Multiprocessor Programming is a new FIRST-READ book for concurrency study.

This book comprehensively presents the principles and tools available for programming multiprocessor machines. It is of immediate use to programmers working with the new architectures. The authors are the leaders in this research community. Sample programs are written in Java.

XHR Caching Test Catch-up

2008-10-29T10:15:00.005+09:00

I examined recent Web Browser implementation with XMLHttpRequest Caching Test, which was posted by mnot, 2 years ago.

XMLHttpRequest Caching Test

The set of browsers I examined includes the latest stable Windows versions of Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome.

Today's Paper: MapJAX: Data Structure Abstractions for Ajax (USENIX 2007)

2008-10-28T00:33:00.000+09:00

A model paper for discussing based on Ajax-like technologies. I have just found a PDF file of this paper in many icons on my desktop...

Title:
MapJAX: Data Structure Abstractions for Asynchronous Web Applications

Authors:
Daniel S. Myers, Jennifer N. Carlisle, James A. Cowling, and Barbara H. Liskov, MIT CSAIL

EE:
http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix07/tech/myers.html

Abstract:

The current approach to developing rich, interactive web applications relies on asynchronous RPCs (Remote Procedure Calls) to fetch new data to be displayed by the client. We argue that for the majority of web applications, this RPC-based model is not the correct abstraction: it forces programmers to use an awkward continuation-passing style of programming and to expend too much effort manually transferring data. We propose a new programming model, MapJAX, to remedy these problems. MapJAX provides the abstraction of data structures shared between the browser and the server, based on the familiar primitives of objects, locks, and threads. MapJAX also provides additional features (parallel for loops and prefetching) that help developers minimize response times in their applications. MapJAX thus allows developers to focus on what they do best-writing compelling applications-rather than worrying about systems issues of data transfer and callback management.

We describe the design and implementation of the MapJAX framework and show its use in three prototypical web applications: a mapping application, an email client, and a search-autocomplete application. We evaluate the performance of these applications under realistic Internet latency and bandwidth constraints and find that the unoptimized MapJAX versions perform comparably to the standard AJAX versions, while MapJAX performance optimizations can dramatically improve performance, by close to a factor of 2 relative to non-MapJAX code in some cases.

Today's Person: Mr. Software Rejuvenation Never Aging

2008-10-13T22:21:00.001+09:00

Software rejuvenation is a proactive fault management technique for preventing the occurrence of severe crash failures in the future by cleaning up the state of a system. As bug-zero software is almost impossible, it is a practical solution to provide a robust system.

Prof. Kishor Trivedi and his group has contributed a lot to this area. Their webpage presents very useful information for studying the cutting-edge of this research, including Prof. Trivedi's keynote speeches, many conference/journal papers, and whitepapers.

The Best Introduction to InvokeDynamic (JSR 292)

2008-09-12T23:32:00.001+09:00

Charles Nutter, the JRuby development lead, posted an extensive introductory article on the road towards JSR 292 Supporting Dynamically Typed Languages on the Java Platform (a.k.a. invokedynamic). According to his experience with prototyping of JRoby using InvokeDynamic, he has explained how we can leverage the coming feature of JVM. He also mentions things that are not covered in the current draft of the specification (EDR), such as AnonymousClassLoader, which are critical to support dynamic languages on top of the Java platform.

Charles Nutter, First taste of InvokeDynamic:

http://blog.headius.com/2008/09/first-taste-of-invokedynamic.html

Google Chrome Explained in a Comic Book

2008-09-02T10:15:00.000+09:00

The brilliant design of Google Chrome Web browser is explained in a comic style, including its per-tab process, hidden-class optimization in the V8 JavaScript engine, user interfaces, and so far.

Google Chrome the Comic Book

It is a model technology show case displaying fairly deep technologies in attractive words of brevity and clarity.

Today's Paper: Follow-ups for Google's MapReduce

2008-07-19T16:23:00.000+09:00

Ralf Lämmel: Google's MapReduce programming model - Revisited. Sci. Comput. Program. 70(1): 1-30 (2008)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scico.2007.07.001

Abstract:
Google’s MapReduce programming model serves for processing large data sets in a massively parallel manner. We deliver the first rigorous description of the model including its advancement as Google’s domain-specific language Sawzall. To this end, we reverse-engineer the seminal papers on MapReduce and Sawzall, and we capture our findings as an executable specification. We also identify and resolve some obscurities in the informal presentation given in the seminal papers. We use typed functional programming (specifically Haskell) as a tool for design recovery and executable specification. Our development comprises three components: (i) the basic program skeleton that underlies MapReduce computations; (ii) the opportunities for parallelism in executing MapReduce computations; (iii) the fundamental characteristics of Sawzall’s aggregators as an advancement of the MapReduce approach. Our development does not formalize the more implementational aspects of an actual, distributed execution of MapReduce computations.

Jeffrey's MapReduce papers and Talk:

Jeffrey Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat: MapReduce: simplified data processing on large clusters. Commun. ACM 51(1): 107-113 (2008)
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1327452.1327492
Jeffrey Dean: MapReduce and Other Building Blocks for Large-Scale Distributed Systems at Google. Invited Talk at USENIX Annual Technical Conference 2007
http://www.usenix.org/media/events/usenix07/tech/mp3/dean.mp3

Today's Paper: Groovy O/R Mapping in ACM Queue

2008-05-30T08:50:00.000+09:00

Chris Richardson has an ACM Queue article on O/R Mapping frameworks for dynamic languages, referring GORM (Groovy O/R Mapping). He successfully introduces GORM by highlighting its difference from Java's solution, Hybernate.

ORM in Dynamic Languages

Volume 6 , Issue 3 (May/June 2008)
Object-Relational Mapping
FEATURE: Q focus: Object-Relational Mapping
Pages 28-37
Year of Publication: 2008
ISSN:1542-7730

Author:
Chris Richardson

Abstract:
A major component of most enterprise applications is the code that transfers objects in and out of a relational database. The easiest solution is often to use an ORM (object-relational mapping) framework, which allows the developer to declaratively define the mapping between the object model and database schema and express database-access operations in terms of objects. This high-level approach significantly reduces the amount of database-access code that needs to be written and boosts developer productivity.

Best Twitter Architecture Introductory

2008-05-13T21:22:00.000+09:00

Alex Iskold posted an excellent article on the architecture of the Twitter platform. It clearly explains what are problems and how they are solved in terms of relational DB and Computing Clouds.

Twitter and the Architectural Challenges of Life Streaming Applications, Alex Iskold (May 12, 2008)

Today's Paper: Internet Monetization Papers in WWW 2008

2008-04-22T23:59:00.001+09:00

This year's WWW conference accepted a lot of papers related to business method issues in world-wide web and had 3 sessions named "monetization". :-)

Internet Monetization: Online advertising

Arpita Ghosh, Mohammad Mahdian: Externalities in online advertising. pp.161-168
Uriel Feige, Nicole Immorlica, Vahab S. Mirrokni, Hamid Nazerzadeh: A combinatorial allocation mechanism with penalties for banner advertising. pp.169-178
Hamid Nazerzadeh, Amin Saberi, Rakesh Vohra: Dynamic cost-per-action mechanisms and applications to online advertising. pp.179-188

Internet Monetization: Recommendation and security

Jason D. Hartline, Vahab S. Mirrokni, Mukund Sundararajan: Optimal marketing strategies over social networks. pp.189-198
Reid Andersen, Christian Borgs, Jennifer T. Chayes, Uriel Feige, Abraham D. Flaxman, Adam Kalai, Vahab S. Mirrokni, Moshe Tennenholtz: Trust-based recommendation systems: an axiomatic approach. pp.199-208
Jens Grossklags, Nicolas Christin, John Chuang: Secure or insure?: a game-theoretic analysis of information security games. pp.209-218

Internet Monetization: Sponsored Search

Anindya Ghose, Sha Yang: Analyzing search engine advertising: firm behavior and cross-selling in electronic markets. pp.219-226
Massimiliano Ciaramita, Vanessa Murdock, Vassilis Plachouras: Online learning from click data for sponsored search. pp227-236

Google App Engine

2008-04-08T20:56:00.002+09:00

Google announced Google App at Campfire One.
You can see their presentation at YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ztr-HhWX1c
The movie is kindly prepared and easy to follow.

Google App Engine is a SaaS style Web application platform for developing and running Web applications. (Currently it is a 'preview release' and only available to the limited number of developers.) Python is the language for programming on the platform and the platform comes with APIs (and library implementation) for Datastore, Users, URL Fetch, and Mail, in addition to those which are already available with stock Python.

This is the ultimate style of agile web development with "zero" start-up cost as hosting service itself is also included in the platform. While lots of other companies are trying to do the similar thing, you know, it is Google, which is worth keeping our watch on.

A Literary Gem on How to Lock in Multi-Threaded Programs

2007-08-02T06:22:00.000+09:00

Thread-safe programming, especially when we want to make our application optimized and scalable, is very hard. Michael Suess, in his blog named "Thinking Parallel",

10 Ways to Reduce Lock Contentions in Threaded Programs, Michael Suess, Blog "Thinking Parallel", July 31, 2007

He refers to the book "Java Concurrency in Practice" for some of these tips, but basically the list is his original.

One feasible and well-known solution is to never write them by ourselves but to let libraries handle it. Doug Lea's book on design patterns in Java thread programming covers most of important techniques for the problem domain and they are now available as the standard java.util.concurrent package in Java.

However, as you know, it may not solve all you need. Then let's get back to the principals Michael has just extracted for us.

Axis2 Execution Framework

2007-02-06T23:05:00.001+09:00

At developer.com, Deepal Jayasinghe explains the execution framework of Apache Axis2.
The handler architecture with phases, phase rules and module engagement is well explained in the article.

Axis2 Execution Framework, developer.com, by Deepal Jayasinghe

This article is worth checking out in addition to the official documentation:

Today's Paper: Compiler Optimizations for Nondeferred Reference-Counting Garbage Collection (ISMM 2006)

2007-01-19T17:27:00.000+09:00

Compiler Optimizations for Nondeferred Reference-Counting Garbage Collection

Author:
Pramod G. Joisha

ISMM'06
Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Memory Management, ISMM 2006, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, June 10-11, 2006, pp.150-161

http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1133956.1133976

Apache Tomcat Performance

2007-01-09T20:04:00.000+09:00

Frank Ziglar reports on the peformance of Tomcat, one of the most used Sevlet engines in the world (Some statistics can be found here), on Window and Linux platforms.

Comparing Apache Tomcat Performance Across Platforms, Sys-Con LiNUX, By Frank Ziglar, Apr 28, 2006
— They have measured performance information to distinguish the differences between the Windows and Linux platforms. Given comparable hardware we found the performance differences almost trivial.

The original (full version?) report, devided into two parts, is available at the website of Web performance, Inc.

Today's Paper: A Smart Hill-Climbing Algorithm for Application Server Configuration (WWW 2004)

2007-01-04T15:37:00.000+09:00

A smart hill-climbing algorithm for application server configuration

Authors:
Bowei Xi, Zhen Liu, Mukund Raghavachari, Cathy H. Xia, Li Zhang

WWW 2004
pp.287-296

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=988672.988711

Today's Book: Groovy for Java Programmers

2006-12-07T14:11:00.000+09:00

Groovy Programming: An Introduction for Java Developers by Kenneth Barclay and John Savage

I regard Groovy is the scriting language for Java programmers, at least for now. So, this book is for you, Java programmers, to get started with Groovy.

Today's Paper: Prototypes with Multiple Dispatch: An Expressive and Dynamic Object Model (ECOOP 2005)

2006-12-04T15:52:00.000+09:00

Prototypes with Multiple Dispatch: An Expressive and Dynamic Object Model

Authors:
Lee Salzman, Jonathan Aldrich

Abstract:
Two object-oriented programming language paradigms—dynamic, prototype-based languages and multi-method languages—provide orthogonal benefits to software engineers. These two paradigms appear to be in conflict, however, preventing engineers from realizing the benefits of both technologies in one system. This paper introduces a novel object model, prototypes with multiple dispatch (PMD), which seamlessly unifies these two approaches. We give formal semantics for PMD, and discuss implementation and experience with PMD in the dynamically typed programming language Slate.

ECOOP 2005
pp.312-336

http://www.springerlink.com/content/540huj0bnh8ktctv/

Today's Paper: Predicate Classes (ECOOP'93)

2006-12-04T15:45:00.000+09:00

Predicate Classes

Author:
Craig Chamber

ECOOP '93
pp.268-296

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v74k8ltwjcg4wh89/

Today's Paper: Traits: A mechanism for fine-grained reuse

2006-11-08T15:57:00.000+09:00

Traits: A mechanism for fine-grained reuse

Authors:
Stéphane Ducasse, Oscar Nierstrasz, Nathanael Schärli, Roel Wuyts, Andrew P. Black

Abstract:
Inheritance is well-known and accepted as a mechanism for reuse in object-oriented languages. Unfortunately, due to the coarse granularity of inheritance, it may be difficult to decompose an application into an optimal class hierarchy that maximizes software reuse. Existing schemes based on single inheritance, multiple inheritance, or mixins, all pose numerous problems for reuse. To overcome these problems we propose traits, pure units of reuse consisting only of methods. We develop a formal model of traits that establishes how traits can be composed, either to form other traits, or to form classes. We also outline an experimental validation in which we apply traits to refactor a nontrivial application into composable units.

ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS)
Volume 28 , Issue 2 (March 2006)
Pages: 331 - 388
Year of Publication: 2006

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1119479.1119483

J2EE-PHP Interop

2006-11-02T13:44:00.001+09:00

In an FTPOnline article, Andi Gutmans, et al. discuss two technologies for interoperating between WebSphere and PHP.

Achieve J2EE-PHP Interoperability by Andi Gutmans, Stew Nickolas, and Zeev Suraski, FTPOnline, Nov 1, 2006

Two most popular technologies, SOAP and PHP/Java Bridge, are coverd.

Today's Paper: Finding Probably Better System Configurations Quickly (SIGMETRICS/Performance 2006)

2006-09-11T15:33:00.000+09:00

Finding Probably Better System Configurations Quickly

Authors:
Takayuki Osogami, Toshinari Itoko:

SIGMETRICS/Performance 2006
pp.264-275

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1140277.1140308

Today's Paper: A Reference Architecture for Overlay Networks (P2P2005)

2006-09-05T14:41:00.000+09:00

The Essence of P2P: A Reference Architecture for Overlay Networks

Authors:
Karl Aberer, Luc Onana Alima, Ali Ghodsi, Sarunas Girdzijauskas, Seif Haridi, Manfred Hauswirth

Peer-to-Peer Computing 2005
pp.11-20

http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/P2P.2005.38