Archives for posts with tag: Erik Meijer

E2E: Brian Beckman and Erik Meijer – Co/Contravariance in Physics and Programming, 3 of n

May 25, 10 //

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Part 3 of the Beckman Meijer Co/Contravariance in Physics and Programming Hypothesis/Challenge has finally arrived, Niners!

You learned about Brian Beckman’s perspective on covariance and contravariance in physics. Erik Meijer found this topic to be incredibly interesting and the two geniuses decided to take a stab at identifying the relationship between co/contra in two different domains: physics and programming.

What will they discover at the whiteboards?

Tune in to find out in this n-part series (part 1 here, part 2 here) with two of Channel 9’s and Microsoft’s most famous and respected software practitioners. Will there be a part 4? Perhaps you can help Brian and Erik find an answer to this interesting problem. They’re real close. Niners can help reach the end line (if there is in fact one). It is highly recommended that you watch the first parts before watching this one!

Thinking caps on? Go!

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

May 18, 10 //

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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.

E2E: Erik Meijer and Cormac Herley – Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users

April 23, 10 //

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Dr. Cormac Herley spends most of his time thinking about why and how computer users reject security advice (from both fellow humans and software security warning prompts). Recently, his paper, “So Long, and No Thanks for the Externalities: the Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users,” received a fair amount of attention from the general media (Boston Globe, Tech Republic, NPR, etc). The paper also prompted our favorite software renegade, Dr. Erik Meijer, to send me an email, simply asking that I “please set up an E2E with Cormac Herley.” I did just that and the following conversation is what happened…

Enjoy.

Inside SPUR – A Trace-Based JIT Compiler for CIL

April 15, 10 //

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Computer Scientists and MSR Researchers Wolfram Schulte, Herman Venter, Nikolai Tillmann, and Manuel Fahndrich join Erik Meijer for an Expert to Expert deep dive into the theory and implementation strategies inside of SPUR, a research Tracing Just-In-Time (TJIT) compiler for Microsoft’s Common Intermediate Language CIL (the target language of C#, VB.NET, F#, and many other .NET languages).

Tracing just-in-time compilers (TJITs) determine frequently executed traces (hot paths and loops) in running programs and focus their optimization effort by emitting optimized machine code specialized to these traces. Prior work has established this strategy to be especially beneficial for dynamic languages such as JavaScript, where the TJIT interfaces with the interpreter and produces machine code from the JavaScript trace.

In order to validate that the performance gains of a TJIT for interpreted languages like JavaScript do not depend on specific idioms of the language, the SPUR team produces a performance evaluation of a JavaScript runtime that translates JavaScript to CIL and then runs on top of SPUR.

Read the SPUR research paper.

Channel 9 Live at MIX10: Bill Buxton & Erik Meijer – Perspectives on Design

March 30, 10 //

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Bill Buxton and Erik Meijer are both highly respected scientists in very different fields. Erik is a programming language designer and creator of LINQ, “Volta”, Rx and other things we can’t share publicly yet. Bill is a user experience design researcher, musician and a celebrity in the design community.

We figured we should put them together, roll the cameras and see what happens. The topic: different perspectives on the essence of design, regardless of specific domain.

It turns out that Erik and Bill have many similarities including an interesting Dutch connection. This is a pure Channel 9 conversation that happened in real time at MIX10, broadcast live.

So, what happens when you put two masters of different domains together for the first time, on stage, live? Tune in to find out.

E2E: JavaScript Performance, Project JSMeter and Web Programming

March 29, 10 //

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JavaScript is the most widely used programming language on the web. As the great Douglas Crockford likes to say, JavaScript is both the world’s most popular programming language and the world’s least popular programming language at the same time.

In this episode of Expert to Expert (to Expert), Erik Meijer joins MSR research scientists Ben Livshits and Ben Zorn to talk about JavaScript, project JSMeter and today’s trends in web programming.

Dr. Zorn and Dr. Livshits have been doing a significant amount of research on how JavaScript is used in the real world by analyzing JS execution on large-scale (JS-heavy) commercial web sites. Their formal exploration of JS executing in the real world, Project JSMeter, has yielded results, which seem to indicate that current JS performance test suites are at best suspect in terms of how JavaScript is actually running on the web, in production, on real sites, etc. But read the findings and make your own judgments, of course.

Tune in. Enjoy.

Channel 9 Live at MIX10: Javascript Panel with Douglas Crockford, John Resig & Erik Meijer

March 26, 10 //

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JavaScript language designer and historian Douglas Crockford joins language designer Erik Meijer and jQuery creator John Resig to discuss JavaScript and web programming.

This is the first time that this particular collection of experts have shared the stage to discuss what has become the most popular – and least popular – programming language in the world (to quote Crockford, who knows better than anybody else…).

Topics discussed include the history and future of jQuery, how JavaScript is actually used in the real world (is it only used in web pages?), ES5 (the latest version of ECMAScript), JS performance (how fast is fast enough?), how the language is evolving (what’s Crockford up to these days) and much more.

If you’re a JS enthusiast, then this is definitely for you!

Recorded live as part of Channel 9 Live at MIX10

Channel 9 Live at MIX10 – Who, What, Why, When and How!?

March 13, 10 //

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*** Update *** Due to some scheduling conflicts we have had to make a few changes to the Channel 9 Live at MIX10 lineup.

Unfortunately Charlie Kindel is unable to appear on Channel 9 Live at MIX10. In his place we are pulling together a panel of Windows Phone 7 Series experts to talk about the application development story for WP7.

Also Scott Guthrie is unable to join Bill Buxton on day 2. In Scott’s place Erik Meijer will be stepping in for a slightly different discussion with Bill on design; engineering vs. user experience. Should be fun!

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MIX 2010 kicks off tomorrow at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino. For those of you unable to attend the conference in person make sure you tune into Channel 9 Live for live, unscripted and 100% interactive coverage.

Full details below:

What
Channel 9 Live is a live and interactive broadcast of interviews with executives, VIP’s, industry luminaries, technology experts, session presenters, mad scientists and everyone in between. If you have a question for folks like Scott Guthrie, Joe Belfiore, Bill Buxton and Dean Hachamovich send them through to us and we’ll ask on your behalf, live on the air. It’s the next best thing to being there in person.

When
Immediately following the keynotes, Channel 9 Live will be broadcasting from:
• Monday March 15th: 10:30AM – 5:30PM (PST)
• Tuesday March 16th: 10:30AM – 5:30PM (PST)

How to Watch
Visit http://live.visitmix.com – Channel 9 Live will automatically start streaming from within the MIX player at the conclusion of the keynotes each day. (Silverlight required)

How to participate
Send us your questions via Twitter (@ch9live) or post your question in the Channel 9 Coffeehouse and we’ll do our best to get them in front of the right person.

Session Schedule
Please note that dates and times may change – check back often for updates

Day 1, March 15th, 2010
10:30AM (immediately following the keynote) to 5:30PM

Title: MIX10 Day 1 Keynote After Party
Recapping the announcements and answering all your questions from the MIX10 Day 1 Keynote
Time: 10:30AM – 11:30AM
Who: John Papa, Adam Kinney, Loke Uei Tan and Nic Fillingham
Ask questions about: MIX10 Day 1 Keynote announcements

Title: The Windows Phone Developer Story
Who: Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Mini-Panel
Time: 11:30AM
Ask questions about: Developing on the Windows Phone 7 Series, End-to-End App Development

Title: Super-Secret Coding4Fun Keynote Project
Who: Clint Rutkas and Dan Fernandez
Time: 12:00PM
Ask questions about: Secret stuff from the keynote

Title: Designing the Windows Phone 7 Series
Who: Albert Shum
Time: 12:30PM
Ask questions about: Designing the Windows Phone 7 Series, Designing for Mobile Experiences, The right and left brain of Design

Title: Developing Games with XNA on Windows Phone 7 Series
Who: Michael Klucher and Shawn Hargreaves
Time: 1:00PM
Ask questions about: XNA, Game Development for Windows Phone

1:30PM to 2:30PM – Lunch Break.
Pre-recorded Channel 9 videos (duration 60 minutes)

Title: The Gu on all things Silverlight
Who: Scott Guthrie
Time: 2:30PM
Ask questions about: Anything and everything Silverlight, Visual Studio and The Gu; The Man, The Myth,… The Legend!

Title: Welcome to Windows Phone 7 Series
Who: Joe Belfiore
Time: 3:00PM
Ask questions about: Hardware, UI, Marketplace, Apps, Ecosystem

Title: GEEK-LYMPICS – Are you smarter than a MIX10 attendee?
Time: 3:30PM

Title: UI Design with Expression Blend for the Windows Phone 7 Series
Who: Christian Schormann
Time: 4:00PM
Ask questions about: Expression Blend, Mobile UI Design

Title: @Loic on Silverlight
Who: Loic Le Meur, CEO and Founder of Seesmic
Time: 4:30PM
Ask questions about: Seesmic, Silverlight + Secret stuff from the keynote

Title: This Week on Channel 9 – MIX10 Day 1 Wrap Up Edition
Who: Adam Kinney, John Papa, Jeff Sandquist and Dan Fernandez
Time: 5:00PM
Ask questions about: all the questions that didn’t get answered from day 1

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Day 2, March 16th, 2010
10:30AM (immediately following the keynote) to 5:30PM

Title: MIX10 Day 2 Keynote After Party
Recapping the announcements and answering your questions from the MIX10 Day 2 Keynote
Time: 10:30AM – 11:30AM
Who: Scott Hanselman, Giorgio Sardo, Adam Kinney and Nic Fillingham
Ask questions about: MIX10 Day 2 Key Note announcements

Title: The Impact of
Great User Experience
Who: Bill Buxton
Time: 11:30AM
Ask questions about: User Experience, Design and Traditional Birch Bark Canoes

Title: Perspectives on Design; Engineering & User Experience
Who: Erik Meijer & Bill Buxton (together)
Time: 12:00PM
Ask questions about: Cats and dogs living together

Title: Data, Data Everywhere
Who: Doug Purdy
Time: 12:30PM
Ask questions about: Dallas, Azure, SQL Azure + Secret stuff from the keynote

Title: Internet Explorer 9
Who: Dean Hachamovich
Title: 1:00PM
Ask questions about: The future of IE + Secret stuff from the keynote

1:30PM to 2:30PM – Lunch Break.
Pre-recorded Channel 9 videos (duration 60 minutes)

Title: Creating Pivot Collections
Who: Matt Jubelirer and Brett Brewer
Time: 2:30PM
Ask questions about: All things Pivot

Title: Expert to Expert Live (with Charles Torre) – JQuery
Who: Erik Meijer and John Resig
Time: 3:00PM
Ask questions about: JQuery, Javascript + Secret stuff from the keynote

Title: GEEK-LYMPICS – Are you smarter than a MIX10 attendee?
Time: 3:30PM

Title: 8 Petabytes, 25 million Viewers & Six Servers; Delivering the Olympics in HD and Living to Tell the Tale
Who: Eric Schmidt and Jason Suess
Time: 4:00PM
Ask questions about: Silverlight video, adaptive smooth streaming, Vancouver Winter Olympics

Title: Browser Graphics, Web Standards and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) Panel
Who: Doug Schepers, Patrick Dengler, Ted Johnson with Joshua Allen
Time: 4:30PM
Ask questions about: Web Standards, Browser Graphics, Scalable Vector Graphics

Title: This Week on Channel 9 – MIX10 Day 2 Wrap Up Edition
Who: Adam Kinney, John Papa, Jeff Sandquist and Dan Fernandez
Time: 5:00PM
Ask questions about: all the questions that didn’t get answered from day 2

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All details are subject to change so keep checking back for updates.

Thanks and we hope you enjoy the show!

If you have any questions please let us know.

Brian Beckman: On Analog Computing, Some Beckman History, and Life in the Universe

March 11, 10 //

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It’s been far too long since we’ve chatted with the great Brian Beckman, an astrophysicist, software architect, and Channel 9 icon. Some of you may know him as the wizard who appears out of thin air whenever the word Monad is said three times in succession. :->

A few weeks ago, Erik Meijer sent an email to Brian with a link to some videos about the use of analog computers in the US Navy in the 1950s. This got Brian thinking and reflecting about his past. Turns out Brian’s father was a famous Hollywood actor who also produced training movies for the US Navy. Well, I was added on to the email thread and we taped the conversation in this video a few days later.

It’s always a pleasure to embark on an unscripted chat with Dr. Beckman. There are always great nuggets of wisdom and insight around every corner. Here, you’ll learn about some of Brian’s personal history, some insights on analog computing, and even some discussion on the Drake equation, N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL, which attempts to formalize the probability of intelligent life in the universe.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy.

E2E: Erik Meijer and Leslie Lamport – Mathematical Reasoning and Distributed Systems

March 9, 10 //

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A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn’t even know existed can render your own computer unusable. -Leslie Lamport.

Leslie Lamport is a computer scientist and mathematician best known for his work with distributed systems. In fact, Dr. Lamport’s research contributions laid the foundations for the theory of distributed systems. He currently works in Microsoft Research where most of his time is spent developing formal semantics (with mathematical logic) for specifying and reasoning about algorithms.

Here, Dr. Erik Meijer, computer scientist and programming language/library designer, sits down with Dr. Lamport to discuss several aspects of Dr. Lamport’s body of work in computer science.

Dr. Lamport’s TLA, the Temporal Logic of Actions, is a logic for specifying and reasoning about concurrent and reactive systems. TLA+ is the latest incarnation of this formal specification toolset.

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