An airhacks.fm conversation with Kevlin Henney (@KevlinHenney) about:
first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 with 1K of memory,
programming in Basic and later Z80 assembly language,
creating simulations like volcano explosions and n-body problems as a teenager,
transitioning to the ZX Spectrum and other early home computers,
studying physics at university but becoming more interested in programming,
learning fortran,
getting his first programming job at a small software house in Bristol where his boss had a wall of books on programming languages and paradigms,
becoming self-taught through reading these books,
developing an interest in AI and philosophy of mind which led to pursuing a master's degree in parallel computer systems,
creating a virtual machine for a Lisp-based actor model,
learning about the occam programming language based on Communicating sequential processes (CSP) for transputers,
discovering Object-oriented programming and being fascinated by modularity and encapsulation,
encountering Java in the mid-90s as a free downloadable language with platform independence,
appreciating Java's familiar C-like syntax while offering object orientation without low-level concerns,
using Java primarily for training and consultancy work rather than application development,
discussing the evolution of Java features like inner classes (Java 1.1) and interfaces,
explaining his unique perspective on interfaces coming from distributed systems experience with IDLs,
reflecting on his work with various distributed Java technologies like RMI,
Jini and JavaSpaces,
continuing his career as an independent consultant,
trainer and speaker with strong involvement in the patterns community
Kevlin Henney on twitter: @KevlinHenney
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1:09:08
Java Scalability Considerations
An airhacks.fm conversation with Francesco Nigro (@forked_franz) about:
Netty committer and performance engineer at Red Hat,
discussion of Netty's history,
focus on low-level core components like buffers and allocators in Netty,
relationship between Vert.x and Netty where Vert.x provides a more opinionated and user-friendly abstraction over Netty,
explanation of reactive back pressure implementation in Vert.x,
performance advantages of Vert.x over Netty due to batching and reactive design,
detailed explanation of IO_uring as a Linux-specific asynchronous I/O mechanism,
comparison between event loop architecture and Project Loom for scalability,
limitations of Loom when working with IO_uring due to design incompatibilities,
discovery of a major Java type system scalability issue related to instance-of checks against interfaces,
explanation of how this issue affected Hibernate performance,
deep investigation using assembly-level analysis to identify the root cause,
collaboration with Andrew Haley to fix the 20-year-old JDK issue,
performance improvements of 2-3x after fixing the issue,
discussion of CPU cache coherency problems in NUMA architectures,
explanation of how container environments like kubernetes can worsen performance issues due to CPU scheduling,
insights into how modern CPUs handle branch prediction and speculation,
impact of branch misprediction on performance especially with memory access patterns,
discussion of memory bandwidth limitations in AI/ML workloads,
advantages of unified memory architectures like Apple M-series chips for AI inference
Francesco Nigro on twitter: @forked_franz
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1:08:44
From Kona Coffee Beans to Java
An airhacks.fm conversation with Burr Sutter (@burrsutter) about:
first computer: IBM PS/2 386SX funded by grandparents' Kona coffee sales,
early passion for programming and problem-solving,
self-taught C programming,
database engine development as a student,
transition from theater aspirations to computer science,
work with Progress 4GL and Silverstream,
shift to .net development,
joining JBoss and Red Hat through acquisition,
Mark Fleury's impactful "free don't suck" presentation,
evolution of Java application servers and middleware technologies,
enterprise service bus and SOA,
impact of docker and kubernetes on the industry,
Red Hat's adaptation to cloud-native technologies,
development of quarkus,
current interest in language models and GenAI,
Java's longevity and adaptability,
Quarkus' fast startup time and compatibility with legacy Java EE applications,
work on Kubernetes and Quarkus,
the importance of Java's "write once, run anywhere" principle,
Java's performance compared to other languages
Burr Sutter on twitter: @burrsutter
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1:15:45
Pure Java Inception
An airhacks.fm conversation with Christian Humer (@grashalm_) about:
early programming experiences with DOS text Adventures and Captain Comic,
transition from graphics design to computer science,
work on Java Server Pages (JSPs) and point-of-sale systems,
development of Swing GUI for touchscreens,
introduction to GraalVM and Truffle framework,
ActionScript, Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex,
explanation of Futamura projections and partial evaluation in Truffle,
discussion on the challenges of implementing dynamic language runtimes,
de-optimization in JIT compilers,
Nashorn JavaScript engine vs. GraalJS,
language interoperability in GraalVM,
reuse of libraries across different programming languages,
embedding of JavaScript and React in Java applications,
comparison with PyPy in the python ecosystem,
current work on bytecode DSL for generating bytecode interpreters,
the importance of math in computer science and its relation to programming concepts
Christian Humer on twitter: @grashalm_
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1:03:08
From Swing to Blockchain
An airhacks.fm conversation with Richard Bair (@RichardBair) about:
early programming experiences with Basic and building computers,
his first production app at 17 for his father's auto repair shop,
starting computer science degree at 16 and completing it at 43,
joining Sun Microsystems' Swing team,
working on JavaFX from its inception as F3 through its evolution,
becoming lead of JavaFX team and chief architect for client Java,
moving to Oracle's IoT team,
current role as VP of Engineering at Hedera blockchain company,
explanation of Hedera's Hashgraph algorithm solving the Byzantine Generals Problem,
implementation of Hedera's technology in Java,
open-source nature of Hedera's codebase,
resources for learning about and developing with Hedera including documentation,
Hedera Improvement Proposals - hips,
and developer hedera playground,
discussion of blockchain technology and its potential impact on open protocols and decentralized networks,
comparison of blockchain to distributed databases,
explanation of consensus mechanisms in distributed ledgers,
tokenization of real-world assets
Richard Bair on twitter: @RichardBair
Portugal