September meeting of the Mountain View Java Users Group

Date: Wednesday, September 23rd, 1998
Time: 7.00pm-9.00pm
Location: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center George Pake Auditorium
 see directions below

MTVJUG completes 36 months coming December'98. MTVJUG was founded in December '95.
Agenda:
7.00 to 7.05-Announcements
7.05 to 8.15-Removing the "Black Magic" from Java Multithreading
by Paul Peterson
8.15 to 8.30-Multithreaded Debugging Demo
8.30 to 8.45-Q&A
8.45 to 9.00-Product Demos

(All are welcome, no membership fee, no prior reservation necessary)
Note: For the "Announcements" section if you have something you would like announced, or any "News" (upcoming conferences, information about similar groups, applets...etc) please send mail to (Sudhakar Ramakrishnan) sudha@best.com prior to the meeting. A bulletin board would be placed for product announcements/job openings/miscellaneous announcements.

Removing the "Black Magic" from Java Multithreading

by Paul Peterson

The current state of developing custom multithreaded code in Java is one part software engineering, and one part black magic.

The software engineering part is learning the design patterns that control how threads are allowed to communicate. Reducing the places where threads can access shared variables allows a good programmer to write a correct program.

The black magic part starts when you think you have applied the correct design patterns, but the program occasionally fails, usually at the customer site. Threading problems are sometimes portability problems due to the definition (or lack of definition) of threads in Java. More often the problem is caused by incorrect usage of synchronization.

The talk with cover some design patterns which allow correct threaded programs to be written, some examples of incorrect programming, and a discussion of a new dynamic analysis technology that removes the need for black magic by pinpointing the location and cause of the threading problems.

Biography: Paul Peterson

Paul Petersen received a PhD from the University of Illinois working in the area of high-performance parallel computing. Currently working at Kuck & Associates, Inc (KAI) based in Champaign, IL, Paul leads the development team producing analysis tools for parallel and threaded computing.

Directions:

Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
3333 Coyote Hill Rd
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(415) 812-4000

>From 280 south

Exit at Page Mill Road and drive towards Palo Alto. Turn right onto Coyote Hill Road. As you drive up Coyote Hill past the horse pastures, PARC is the building on the left after you crest the hill.

>From 101

Exit at Oregon Expway. Follow Oregon Expway which will become Page Mill Road. After crossing Foothill Expressway, turn left into Coyote Hill Road. As you drive up Coyote Hill past the horse pastures, PARC is the building on the left after you crest the hill.
Park in the large parking lot, and enter the auditorium at the upper level of the building. (The auditorium entrance is located down the stairs and to the left of the main doors.) Click here for a map.


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Last Updated : September 17, 1998