Archives for posts with tag: Architecture

Bart De Smet: Observations on IQbservable – The Dual of IQueryable

May 18, 10 //

Comments Off

You first learned about Rx on C9. We’ve led you through the basic concepts of reactive programming to the deep mathematical foundation behind Rx (interface duality). By now, you should understand that IObservable is the dual of IEnumerable. Today, you will learn some new concepts (for many of you) in addition to the introduction of Rx’s newest interface, IQbservable, the dual of IQueryable. In effect, the addition of IQbservable completes the interface puzzle within Rx. But what does this mean?

The great Bart De Smet takes us through the fundamentals and specifics behind this new interface, which ships in the latest version of Rx. Most of the time is spent at the whiteboard. There’s also a short demo at the end of the conversation. Here’s the flow:

Whiteboarding:

Expression trees recap (lambdas convertible to either anonymous methods or expression trees)
How LINQ to Objects versus LINQ to SQL works, introducing IQueryable<T>
Look at the Queryable extension methods and how they stitch expression trees together
Differences between IQbservable<T> and IQueryable<T> (mainly simplification)
Extended role of IQbservableProvider compared to IQueryableProvider
Synergy between IQueryable and IQbservable (ToEnumerable/ToObservable “sideways” conversion)
What operators are available (answer: 99% – explain why that 1% is omitted)

Demo:

Sample observable LINQ provider (LINQ to WQL)

Put your thinking caps on, turn up the volume, sit back, and learn. Erik Meijer and team are innovating at a level we haven’t seen in a while around here. Rx is profoundly evolving and taking LINQ along for the ride. Incredible work!

Enjoy this latest episode of Going Deep. Ask questions. Bart et al. will answer them here and on the Rx forums.

Talking Architects with Kim Cameron

May 14, 10 //

Comments Off

“The Internet was born without an identity”. -Kim Cameron.

With the growing interest in “cloud computing”, the subject of Identity is moving into the limelight. Kim Cameron is a legend in the identity architecture and engineering space. He is currently the chief architect for Microsoft’s identity platform and a key contributor to the field at large.

For more info on Architect Insight 2010, including presentation slides and videos go to www.microsoft.com/uk/aic2010

Windows Phone Application Life Cycle

May 4, 10 //

Comments Off

Windows Phone 7 provides developers with two main frameworks in which to work: Silverlight and XNA Framework. Regardless of the framework you chose, you will end up with a Windows Phone application that must be deployed to the Windows Phone market place and from there installed on a Windows Phone device, and provisioned and managed by the user.

Join Tudor Toma – a Principal Program Manager in the Windows Phone team, Jaime Rodriguez – a Principal Technical evangelist, and Yochay Kiriaty – a Senior Technical Evangelist, as they provide an overview of the Windows Phone Application life cycle, explaining the internal architecture of Windows Phone and how application get installed and executed on.

Doug Seven: Code Understanding and Systems Design with Visual Studio 2010

April 12, 10 //

Comments Off

Visual Studio 2010 introduces an entirely new set of architecture tools to aide in both understanding the code you already have and in defining how new systems will be built.

In this session, you will discover how you can use new tools like the Architecture Explorer to better understand and comprehend complex systems before making any changes to them. You will see how graphically modeling the code makes it easier to understand the impact of a potential change. We’ll also show you how you can use modeling tools for UML and layer diagramming to describe and communicate the design of a new system—including how these tools can be used to validate the software being developed against its intended architecture.

Inside IE 9’s High Performance JavaScript Engine

April 9, 10 //

Comments Off

The IE9 Platform Preview includes the first release of the new JavaScript engine. This new engine compiles JavaScript source code into high-quality native machine code. It also has a new fast interpreter for sequentially executing script on traditional web pages and contains several improvements to the JavaScript runtime (including improvements in type representation, polymorphic inline caching and efficient implementation of machine types).

IE 9’s JS engine employs a dual execution pipeline architecture which enables very efficient interpreting of JS code while at the same time compiling JS code in the background (on a different thread), taking advantage of the processing power of modern hardware.

In terms of code analysis, IE 9’s JS engine analyzes hot functions and puts them into a queue for background compilation. There are other types of analysis that happen (or could happen). For example, the ability to change execution strategies based on power state (if a PC is on battery power, for example, then limit the amount of codegen).

In this episode of Going Deep, we meet the leaders of the team that builds this new high performance JavaScript engine: GM Shanku Niyogi, Architect Steve Lucco and GPM John Montgomery. If you’re interested in how IE 9’s JavaScript engine works, then you’ll certainly enjoy this great conversation.

Tune in. Enjoy.

E2E2E: Meijer, Rys and Vick – Programming Data

December 8, 09 //

Comments Off

You asked for it and we delivered: The first E2E2E (expert to expert to expert). Here, Erik Meijer converses with language designer Paul Vick (of VB fame and now focusing on the language code-named “M”) and Michael Rys, a long time expert in the world of data programmability working on the SQL Server team. This great conversation covers many topics (data, type systems, programming languages, transactions, beyond the relational database) as you’ve come to expect from Expert to Expert. Tune in.

Enjoy.

Nick Baker: Xbox Architecture

December 3, 09 //

Comments Off

Nick Baker is General Manager for Xbox Architectural Design. After graduating from Imperial College London in 1990, he found his way to Apple and worked on the team that tried to create a specialized video card. He then went to 3DO where he worked on their high-end gaming system, which unfortunately failed in the market.

In 1997 he joined Microsoft to work in the WebTV team on their next generation set-top-box known as UltimateTV. It was during this time that Microsoft’s Xbox was entering its initial design phase, and because Nick and his team had already done some research at adding game-play capabilities to UltimateTV they provided some useful guidance on the first Xbox hardware design. Nick’s assistance with the initial Xbox design was seen as pivotal enough, that in 2002 he was asked to head up the team that would design the next generation hardware, which would eventually become known as the XBOX 360. It is there, that Nick Baker finds himself to this day, working hard at fine tuning the design of the system, its costs, and its performance.

Inside Windows 7: Recovering Windows from System Degradation and Boot Failures [Inside Windows 7: Recovering Windows from System Degradation and Boot Failures]

November 30, 09 //

Comments Off

Windows 7 is capable of certain levels of self-repair, as you’ve learned. One of the new capabilities in Windows is its ability to recover from serious failures that can impact the OS’s ability to boot. How does Windows 7 handle these errors? Can you boot Windows 7 into Safe Mode or to an earlier functional state when something really bad happens? Yes. You can, depending on the nature of the problem. How?

Stephan Doll, Pavan Kasturi, Desmond Lee and Baskar Sridharan make up most of the team that has enabled Windows 7 to be the most recoverable version of Windows to date. By ensuring that every Windows 7 machine has the ability to automatically diagnose and recover from most boot failures with little or no interaction from the user, this team’s work promises to greatly reduce—or even eliminate—the impact of a serious issue that would otherwise cause significant pain for Windows 7 users.

Tune in.

in reply to Inside Windows 7: Recovering Windows from System Degradation and Boot Failures

Windows Embedded: Past, Present and Future

November 12, 09 //

Comments Off

Windows Embedded Standard is a general purpose OS, based on the Windows codebase, that is highly modular and fine tuned to run on a number of devices ranging in size and complexity (but less powerful and kess general purpose in nature than your average PC) that are x86/x64 powered (casino gaming consoles, retail kiosks, hand-held devices, etc). The next version of Windows Embedded Standard will arrive some time in 2010 – thus the name Windows Embedded Standard 2011.

Windows Embedded is the general term for all Windows embedded products including Windows Embedded Standard, Windows Embedded Compact (aka CE), Windows Embedded Server, Windows Embedded Enterprise.

For the Windows Embedded Standard product line, product examples are Windows XP Embedded (aka XPe), Windows Embedded Standard 2009, Windows Embedded Standard 2011, Windows Embedded POSReady 2009.

We figured it would be a good idea to meet some of the developers who write Windows Embedded Standard to get a better understanding of, well, exactly what it is and where it is going. Here, we meet and chat with Windows Embedded Standard developers Oren Winter, Jon Parati, Mike Moini and Milong Sabandith. What are the key new features in Windows Embedded Standard 2011? What is Windows Embedded Standard 2011, exactly? What’s Windows Embedded CE, again? How is Windows Embedded related to Windows proper? Windows Embedded Standard 2011 is built from the same sources that make up Windows 7? What’s different between the two and why? How is Windows Embedded Standard able to be so modular? What’s the developer story for Windows Embedded Standard 2011? And more. Tune in. Classic Channel 9.

Useful Links:
Product Overview
CTP Download
Submit Feedback
MSDN Forums
Team Blog
Webinars

Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows 7 Redux

October 22, 09 //

Comments Off

Windows 7 is here, available to all for purchase and ships today with new PCs! To celebrate this momentous occasion for Windows and Microsoft, Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich joins me in a discussion that extends the great conversation we had last year on Windows 7 internals. In his previous C9 interview, Mark told us about many of the new additions to the Windows kernel which enable Windows 7 (and Windows Server R2) to scale to large numbers of processors. Well, removing the kernel dispatcher lock is not all that the great Arun Kishan did. He also developed a new scheduling mechanism known as Distributed Fair Share Scheduling (DFSS). Mark describes what this is and how it works.

We also discuss NUMA, non-uniform memory access, (and Mark explains NUMA to us while showing a demo or two on a 256 processor machine!)

Moving on to Windows memory management, the domain of the great engineer Landy Wang, Mark discusses the new additions to the Windows Memory Manager and explains why they matter to those of us who spend all of our time and in user mode.

Learn about all of this and much more as Mark digs into the insides of Windows 7, way deep down in the system (the culmative effects of which help to make Windows 7 Microsoft’s most reliable, scalable and efficient general purpose operating system to date). As usual, Mark explains very complex mechanisms and concepts in a readily understandable way. This is a very conversational piece and we cover a lot of ground in a relatively short period of time. We also learn exactly why Mark is so passionate about operating systems and what the spark was that set off his passion and curiosity of how things work internally.

Mark will be presenting at PDC09 in the Technical Leaders track and the free Windows 7 Developer Boot Camp. His talks will be very deep and will explore all aspects of the new, improved Windows 7 kernel. I highly recommend that you attend both of these talks if you are going to PDC (you’re going, right?!).

Check out the Windows area on 9 for more great Windows 7 content, all rolled up into a nice experience!

Enjoy!

Note: Check out all the 9 Guys Mark has. Also, you should subscribe to his incredible blog.

Tags