This page lists some of the presentations and lectures I have given.
Counting Messages as a Proxy for Average Execution Time in Pharo
Code profilers are used to identify execution bottlenecks and understand the cause of a slowdown. Execution sampling is a monitoring technique commonly employed by code profilers because of its low impact on execution. Regularly sampling the execution of an application estimates the amount of time the interpreter, hardware or software, spent in each method execution time. Nevertheless, this execution time estimation is highly sensitive to the execution environment, making it non reproductive, non-deterministic and not comparable across platforms. On our platform, we have observed that the number of messages sent per second remains within tight (±7%) bounds across a basket of 16 applications. Using principally the Pharo platform for experimentation, we show that such a proxy is stable, reproducible over multiple execu- tions, profiles are comparable, even when obtained in different execution contexts. We have produced Compteur, a new code profiler that does not suffer from execution sampling limitations and have used it to extend the SUnit testing framework for execution comparison.
Test, beauty, cleanness
A code oriented illustration of test-driven development, incremental software change.
Visualizing Dynamic Metrics with Profiling Blueprints
While traditional approaches to code profiling help locate performance bottlenecks, they offer only limited support for removing these bottlenecks. The main reason is the lack of visual and detailed runtime information to identify and eliminate computation redundancy. We provide two profiling blueprints which help identify and remove performance bottlenecks. The structural distribution blueprint graphically represents the CPU consumption share for each method and class of an application. The behavioral distribution blueprint depicts the distribution of CPU consumption along method invocations, and hints at method candidates for caching optimizations. These two blueprints helped us to significantly optimize Mondrian, an open source visualization engine. Our implementation is freely available for the Pharo development environment and has been evaluated in a number of different scenarios.
Modularity beyond inheritance
After a short introduction to object orientation, this lecture gives an overview of the Smalltalk programming language. This lecture was given on November 10, 2008, during the summer school on programming languages (http://pleiad.dcc.uchile.cl/pl2008)
Object-oriented programming with Smalltalk
After a short introduction to object orientation, this lecture gives an overview of the Smalltalk programming language. This lecture was given on November 10, 2008, during the summer school on programming languages (http://pleiad.dcc.uchile.cl/pl2008).
Retrospective on traits
Traits are a simple composition mechanism for structuring object-oriented programs. A Trait is essentially a parameterized set of methods; it serves as a behavioral building block for classes and is the primitive unit of code reuse. With Traits, classes are still organized in a single inheritance hierarchy, but they can make use of Traits to specify the incremental difference in behavior with respect to their superclasses.
Classbox/J: Controlling the Scope of Change in Java
Unanticipated changes to complex software systems can introduce anomalies such as duplicated code, suboptimal inheritance relationships and a proliferation of run-time downcasts. Refactoring to eliminate these anomalies may not be an option, at least in certain stages of software evolution. Classboxes are modules that restrict the visibility of changes to selected clients only, thereby offering more freedom in the way unanticipated changes may be implemented, and thus reducing the need for convoluted design anomalies. In this paper we demonstrate how classboxes can be implemented in statically-typed languages like Java. We also present an extended case study of Swing, a Java GUI package built on top of AWT, and we document the ensuing anomalies that Swing introduces. We show how Classbox/J, a prototype implementation of classboxes for Java, is used to provide a cleaner implementation of Swing using local refinement rather than subclassing.
Programming with Seaside
Lecture given in many places including University of Prague and University of Bern.
Creating Sophisticated Development Tools with OmniBrowser
Smalltalk is not only an object-oriented programming language; it is also known for its extensive integrated development environment supporting interactive and dynamic programming. While the default tools are adequate for browsing the code and developing applications, it is often cumbersome to extend the environment to support new language constructs or to build additional tools supporting new ways of navigating and presenting source code. In this paper, we present the OmniBrowser, a browser framework that supports the definition of browsers based on an explicit metamodel. With OmniBrowser a domain model is described in a graph and the navigation in this graph is specified in its associated metagraph. We present how new browsers are built from predefined parts and how new tools are easily described. The browser framework is implemented in the Squeak Smalltalk environment. This paper shows several concrete instantiations of the framework: a remake of the ubiquitous Smalltalk System Browser, a coverage browser, the Duo Browser and the Dynamic Protocols browser.
Functional Languages Interpretation in Smalltalk
Design and implementation of a scheme interpreter in Smalltalk.
Prototalk: an Environment for Teaching, Understanding, Designing and Prototyping Object-Oriented Languages
With prototype-based languages, concretization and abstraction are unified into a single concept a prototype. Prototype-based languages are based on a simple set of principles: object-centered representation, dynamic reshape of objects, cloning and possibly message delegation. However, they all differ in the interpretation and combination of these principles. Therefore there is a need to compare and understand. In this paper we present Prototalk, a research and teaching vehicle to understand, implement and compare prototype-based languages. Prototalk is a framework that offers a predefined set of language data structures and mechanisms that can be composed and extended to generate various prototype-based language interpreters. It presents a classification of languages based on different mechanisms in an operational manner.
Counting Messages as a Proxy for Average Execution Time in Pharo
Code profilers are used to identify execution bottlenecks and understand the cause of a slowdown. Execution sampling is a monitoring technique commonly employed by code profilers because of its low impact on execution. Regularly sampling the execution of an application estimates the amount of time the interpreter, hardware or software, spent in each method execution time. Nevertheless, this execution time estimation is highly sensitive to the execution environment, making it non reproductive, non-deterministic and not comparable across platforms. On our platform, we have observed that the number of messages sent per second remains within tight (±7%) bounds across a basket of 16 applications. Using principally the Pharo platform for experimentation, we show that such a proxy is stable, reproducible over multiple execu- tions, profiles are comparable, even when obtained in different execution contexts. We have produced Compteur, a new code profiler that does not suffer from execution sampling limitations and have used it to extend the SUnit testing framework for execution comparison.
2011 ecoop
View more presentations from bergel.
A code oriented illustration of test-driven development, incremental software change.
Test beautycleanness
View more presentations from bergel.
While traditional approaches to code profiling help locate performance bottlenecks, they offer only limited support for removing these bottlenecks. The main reason is the lack of visual and detailed runtime information to identify and eliminate computation redundancy. We provide two profiling blueprints which help identify and remove performance bottlenecks. The structural distribution blueprint graphically represents the CPU consumption share for each method and class of an application. The behavioral distribution blueprint depicts the distribution of CPU consumption along method invocations, and hints at method candidates for caching optimizations. These two blueprints helped us to significantly optimize Mondrian, an open source visualization engine. Our implementation is freely available for the Pharo development environment and has been evaluated in a number of different scenarios.
Profiling blueprints
View more presentations from bergel.
After a short introduction to object orientation, this lecture gives an overview of the Smalltalk programming language. This lecture was given on November 10, 2008, during the summer school on programming languages (http://pleiad.dcc.uchile.cl/pl2008)
After a short introduction to object orientation, this lecture gives an overview of the Smalltalk programming language. This lecture was given on November 10, 2008, during the summer school on programming languages (http://pleiad.dcc.uchile.cl/pl2008).
Traits are a simple composition mechanism for structuring object-oriented programs. A Trait is essentially a parameterized set of methods; it serves as a behavioral building block for classes and is the primitive unit of code reuse. With Traits, classes are still organized in a single inheritance hierarchy, but they can make use of Traits to specify the incremental difference in behavior with respect to their superclasses.
Unanticipated changes to complex software systems can introduce anomalies such as duplicated code, suboptimal inheritance relationships and a proliferation of run-time downcasts. Refactoring to eliminate these anomalies may not be an option, at least in certain stages of software evolution. Classboxes are modules that restrict the visibility of changes to selected clients only, thereby offering more freedom in the way unanticipated changes may be implemented, and thus reducing the need for convoluted design anomalies. In this paper we demonstrate how classboxes can be implemented in statically-typed languages like Java. We also present an extended case study of Swing, a Java GUI package built on top of AWT, and we document the ensuing anomalies that Swing introduces. We show how Classbox/J, a prototype implementation of classboxes for Java, is used to provide a cleaner implementation of Swing using local refinement rather than subclassing.
Programming with Seaside
Lecture given in many places including University of Prague and University of Bern.
Creating Sophisticated Development Tools with OmniBrowser
Smalltalk is not only an object-oriented programming language; it is also known for its extensive integrated development environment supporting interactive and dynamic programming. While the default tools are adequate for browsing the code and developing applications, it is often cumbersome to extend the environment to support new language constructs or to build additional tools supporting new ways of navigating and presenting source code. In this paper, we present the OmniBrowser, a browser framework that supports the definition of browsers based on an explicit metamodel. With OmniBrowser a domain model is described in a graph and the navigation in this graph is specified in its associated metagraph. We present how new browsers are built from predefined parts and how new tools are easily described. The browser framework is implemented in the Squeak Smalltalk environment. This paper shows several concrete instantiations of the framework: a remake of the ubiquitous Smalltalk System Browser, a coverage browser, the Duo Browser and the Dynamic Protocols browser.
Functional Languages Interpretation in Smalltalk
Design and implementation of a scheme interpreter in Smalltalk.
Prototalk: an Environment for Teaching, Understanding, Designing and Prototyping Object-Oriented Languages
With prototype-based languages, concretization and abstraction are unified into a single concept a prototype. Prototype-based languages are based on a simple set of principles: object-centered representation, dynamic reshape of objects, cloning and possibly message delegation. However, they all differ in the interpretation and combination of these principles. Therefore there is a need to compare and understand. In this paper we present Prototalk, a research and teaching vehicle to understand, implement and compare prototype-based languages. Prototalk is a framework that offers a predefined set of language data structures and mechanisms that can be composed and extended to generate various prototype-based language interpreters. It presents a classification of languages based on different mechanisms in an operational manner.