h1. Welcome!

I'm, *Jerry Kuch*, one of the developers (along with [[User:marc|Marc]] and [[User:alex|Alex]]) of [[SWiK]]. I've worked on many things including operating systems, multimedia, security and crypto software, niche embedded stuff, broadcast video, a couple of web applications, mathematical programming environments (computer algebra and statistics mainly), virtual machines, network appliances and likely some other things that aren't coming to mind just now.

Recently I've been working in and around:

* The Java virtual machine

* Functional programming languages, particularly targeting the JVM

* Statistical computing, R and SPLUS

* Haskell, type systems, monads, concurrency

* Some Apache Camel/ActiveMQ enterprise integration stuff

* A smidgeon of Ruby, Rails and scripting on the side.

I've recently been working on a couple of projects at once, but am now reaching the point that I can take a bit of a breather and look at something else. But I'm nearly always open to yakking about anything interesting, with somebody interesting.

I'm usually easy to reach at jerrykuch AT gmail.com.

This morning, I stumbled across this:

bq. From the following while reading the otherwise straight-laced README release notes in a README file for a project the SubEthaSMTP library, which had Mavenized its build a few versions ago, only to abandon it apparently change their minds in a more recent release:

bq. "Remove Maven pom.xml crap. Its a pile of dog shit. Don't ever use it."

I knew I wasn't the world's biggest Maven fan. That I have such eloquent competition in my smallness is wonderful.

Some references on cache coherency and memory models, that recently

came up on the Java concurrency mailing list. The below is based on

the original list is by Jaroslav Sevcik with slight additions...

*Intel Itanium:* "A Formal Specification of Intel Itanium Processor Family Memory Ordering":http://www.intel.com/design/itanium/downloads/25142901.pdf

*Intel IA-64 (x86), AMD:*

* "Intel 64 Architecture Memory Ordering White Paper":http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/318147.pdf

* "Richard Hudson's talk on IA memory ordering":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUfvvFD5tAA.

*Sparc TSO:* "The SPARC Architecture Manual, Version v9":http://www.sparc.org/standards/SPARCV9.pdf

*Java Memory Model:*

* "Java Language Specification, Third Edition, chapter 17, Memory Model":http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/memory.html

* "Doug Lea's JSR-133 Cookbook":http://g.oswego.edu/dl/jmm/cookbook.html

*Miscellaneous:*

* PhD dissertation of Jalal Kawash: "Limitations and Capabilities of Weak Memory Consistency Systems":http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kawash/papers/dissertation.pdf Systems" http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kawash/papers/dissertation.pdf

* Shavit and Herlihy: "The Art of Multiprocessor Programming":http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123705916/ref=s9_asin_title_2_subs_c5_29_26_17_16_13-qvfp_p-2785_g1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0H07DVEQN6HW88J6ZW0Y&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846

Some references on cache coherency and memory models, that recently

came up on the Java concurrency mailing list. The below is based on

the original list is by Jaroslav Sevcik with slight additions...

*Intel Itanium:* "A Formal Specification of Intel Itanium Processor Family Memory Ordering":http://www.intel.com/design/itanium/downloads/25142901.pdf

*Intel IA-64 (x86), AMD:*

* "Intel 64 Architecture Memory Ordering White Paper":http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/318147.pdf

* "Richard Hudson's talk on IA memory ordering":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUfvvFD5tAA.

*Sparc TSO:* "The SPARC Architecture Manual, Version v9":http://www.sparc.org/standards/SPARCV9.pdf

*Java Memory Model:*

* "Java Language Specification, Third Edition, chapter 17, Memory Model":http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/memory.html

* "Doug Lea's JSR-133 Cookbook":http://g.oswego.edu/dl/jmm/cookbook.html

*Miscellaneous:*

* PhD dissertation of Jalal Kawash: "Limitations and Capabilities of Weak Memory Consistency Systems" http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kawash/papers/dissertation.pdf Systems:"http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kawash/papers/dissertation.pdf

* Shavit and Herlihy: "The Art of Multiprocessor Programming":http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123705916/ref=s9_asin_title_2_subs_c5_29_26_17_16_13-qvfp_p-2785_g1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0H07DVEQN6HW88J6ZW0Y&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846

Some references on cache coherency and memory models, that recently

came up on the Java concurrency mailing list. The below is based on

the original list is by Jaroslav Sevcik with slight additions...

*Intel Itanium:* "A Formal Specification of Intel Itanium Processor Family Memory Ordering":http://www.intel.com/design/itanium/downloads/25142901.pdf

*Intel IA-64 (x86), AMD:*

* "Intel 64 Architecture Memory Ordering White Paper":http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/318147.pdf

* "Richard Hudson's talk on IA memory ordering":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUfvvFD5tAA.

*Sparc TSO:* "The SPARC Architecture Manual, Version v9":http://www.sparc.org/standards/SPARCV9.pdf

*Java Memory Model:*

* "Java Language Specification, Third Edition, chapter 17, Memory Model":http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/memory.html

* "Doug Lea's JSR-133 Cookbook":http://g.oswego.edu/dl/jmm/cookbook.html

*Miscellaneous:*

* PhD dissertation of Jalal Kawash: "Limitations and Capabilities of Weak Memory Consistency Systems:"http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kawash/papers/dissertation.pdf Systems""http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kawash/papers/dissertation.pdf

* Shavit and Herlihy: "The Art of Multiprocessor Programming":http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123705916/ref=s9_asin_title_2_subs_c5_29_26_17_16_13-qvfp_p-2785_g1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0H07DVEQN6HW88J6ZW0Y&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846

Some references on cache coherency and memory models, that recently

came up on the Java concurrency mailing list. The below is based on

the original list is by Jaroslav Sevcik with slight additions...

*Intel Itanium:* "A Formal Specification of Intel Itanium Processor Family Memory Ordering":http://www.intel.com/design/itanium/downloads/25142901.pdf

*Intel IA-64 (x86), AMD:*

* "Intel 64 Architecture Memory Ordering White Paper":http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/318147.pdf

* "Richard Hudson's talk on IA memory ordering":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUfvvFD5tAA.

*Sparc TSO:* "The SPARC Architecture Manual, Version v9":http://www.sparc.org/standards/SPARCV9.pdf

*Java Memory Model:*

* "Java Language Specification, Third Edition, chapter 17, Memory Model":http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/memory.html

* "Doug Lea's JSR-133 Cookbook":http://g.oswego.edu/dl/jmm/cookbook.html

*Miscellaneous:*

* PhD dissertation of Jalal Kawash: "Limitations and Capabilities of Weak Memory Consistency Systems""http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kawash/papers/dissertation.pdf

* Shavit and Herlihy: "The Art of Multiprocessor Programming":http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123705916/ref=s9_asin_title_2_subs_c5_29_26_17_16_13-qvfp_p-2785_g1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0H07DVEQN6HW88J6ZW0Y&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846

Some references on cache coherency and memory models, that recently

came up on the Java concurrency mailing list. The below is based on

the original list is by Jaroslav Sevcik with slight additions...

*Intel Itanium:* "A Formal Specification of Intel Itanium Processor Family Memory Ordering":http://www.intel.com/design/itanium/downloads/25142901.pdf

*Intel IA-64 (x86), AMD:*

* "Intel 64 Architecture Memory Ordering White Paper":http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/318147.pdf

* "Richard Hudson's talk on IA memory ordering":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUfvvFD5tAA.

*Sparc TSO:* "The SPARC Architecture Manual, Version v9":http://www.sparc.org/standards/SPARCV9.pdf

*Java Memory Model:*

* "Java Language Specification, Third Edition, chapter 17, Memory Model":http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/memory.html

* "Doug Lea's JSR-133 Cookbook":http://g.oswego.edu/dl/jmm/cookbook.html

*Miscellaneous:*

* PhD dissertation of Jalal Kawash: "Limitations and Capabilities of Weak Memory Consistency Systems""http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~kawash/papers/dissertation.pdf

* Shavit and Herlihy: "The Art of Multiprocessor Programming":http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123705916/ref=s9_asin_title_2_subs_c5_29_26_17_16_13-qvfp_p-2785_g1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0H07DVEQN6HW88J6ZW0Y&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846

bq. Dear Amazon.com Customer,

bq. We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated books by John L. Hennessy have also purchased The Idiot Volume 1 of 3: [EasyRead Super Large 20pt Edition] by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. For this reason, you might like to know that The Idiot Volume 1 of 3: [EasyRead Super Large 20pt Edition] is now available. You can order yours for just $24.99... $24.99 by following the link below.

h1. Welcome!

I'm, *Jerry Kuch*, one of the developers (along with [[User:marc|Marc]] and [[User:alex|Alex]]) of [[SWiK]]. I've worked on many things including operating systems, multimedia, security and crypto software, niche embedded stuff, broadcast video, a couple of web applications, mathematical programming environments (computer algebra and statistics mainly), virtual machines, network appliances and likely some other things that aren't coming to mind just now.

Recently I've been working in and around:

* The Java virtual machine

* Functional programming languages, particularly targeting the JVM

* Statistical computing, R and SPLUS

* Haskell, type systems, monads, concurrency

* A smidgeon of Ruby, Rails and scripting on the side.

I've recently been working on a couple of projects at once, but am now reaching the point that I can take a bit of a breather and look at something else. But I'm nearly always open to yakking about anything interesting, with somebody interesting.

I'm usually easy to reach at jerrykuch AT gmail.com. I may come across as a misanthropic, quasi-shut-in crank, but I assure you that's only the case about 80% of the time. Ask "Alex":http://swik.net/User:alex if you don't believe that. He might say it's more like 85%, but that seems to be within the margin of error...

h1. Welcome!

I'm, *Jerry Kuch*, one of the developers (along with [[User:marc|Marc]] and [[User:alex|Alex]]) of [[SWiK]]. I've worked on many things including operating systems, multimedia, security and crypto software, niche embedded stuff, broadcast video, a couple of web applications, mathematical programming environments (computer algebra and statistics mainly), virtual machines, network appliances and likely some other things that aren't coming to mind just now.

In building a system, I like to decompose it into subsystems whose implementation technologies can be independently chosen to make life easy. Pieces can then be replaced, tuned or re-implemented as reality and measurement dictate. One hopes this leads to less development time, frustration and cost. Giant hairballs, built out of technologies that are lower-level than they need to be, waste time and effort, and suck the morale and will to live out of development organizations.

Recently I've been working in and around:

* The Java virtual machine

* Functional programming languages, particularly targeting the JVM

* Statistical computing, R and SPLUS

* Haskell, type systems, monads, concurrency

* A smidgeon of Ruby, Rails and scripting on the side.

I've recently been working on a couple of projects at once, but am now reaching the point that I can take a bit of a breather and look at something else. But I'm nearly always open to yakking about anything interesting, with somebody interesting.

I'm usually easy to reach at jerrykuch AT gmail.com. Although I may often come across as a misanthropic, quasi-shut-in crank, but I assure you that's only the case about 80% of the time. Ask "Alex":http://swik.net/User:alex if you don't believe that. He might say it's more like 85%, but that seems to be within the margin of error...

h1. Welcome!

I'm, *Jerry Kuch*, one of the developers (along with [[User:marc|Marc]] and [[User:alex|Alex]]) of the new [[SWiK]]. I've worked on many a bunch of things including operating systems, multimedia, security and crypto software, niche embedded stuff, broadcast video, a couple of web applications, mathematical programming environments (computer algebra and statistics mainly), virtual machines, network appliances and likely some other things that aren't coming to mind just now.

In building a system, I like to decompose it into subsystems whose implementation technologies can be independently chosen to make life easy. Pieces can then be replaced, tuned or re-implemented as reality and measurement dictate. One hopes this leads to less development time, frustration and cost. Giant hairballs, built out of technologies that are lower-level than they need to be, waste time and effort, and suck the morale and will to live out of development organizations.

Recently I've been working in and around:

* The Java virtual machine

* Functional programming languages, particularly targeting the JVM

* Statistical computing, R and SPLUS

* Haskell, type systems, monads, concurrency

* A smidgeon of Ruby, Rails and scripting on the side.

I've recently been working on a couple of projects at once, but am now reaching the point that I can take a bit of a breather and look at something else. But I'm nearly always open to yakking about anything interesting, with somebody interesting.

I'm usually easy to reach at jerrykuch AT gmail.com. Although I often come across as a misanthropic, quasi-shut-in crank, I assure you that's only the case about 80% of the time. Ask "Alex":http://swik.net/User:alex if you don't believe that. He might say 85%, but that seems to be within the margin of error...

h1. Welcome!

I'm, *Jerry Kuch*, one of the developers (along with [[User:marc|Marc]] and [[User:alex|Alex]]) of the new [[SWiK]]. I've worked on a bunch of things including operating systems, multimedia, security and crypto software, niche embedded stuff, broadcast video, a couple of web applications, mathematical programming environments (computer algebra and statistics mainly), virtual machines, network appliances and likely some other things that aren't coming to mind just now. SWiK's the first web-based tool for the open source community I've worked on.

In When building a system, systems, I like to decompose it see them decomposed into subsystems whose implementation technologies can be independently chosen to make life easy. Pieces can then be replaced, tuned or re-implemented as reality and measurement dictate. One hopes this leads dictate, hopefully leading to expenditure of less development time, frustration and cost. time. Giant hairballs, hairballs built out of technologies that are lower-level than they need to be, be waste time and effort, and suck the morale and will to live out of development organizations.

Recently For the last seven or so months I've been working in and around:

* The most with Java, the Java virtual machine

* Functional programming languages, particularly targeting the Virtual Machine, JVM

* Statistical computing, code generation, functional programming, R and SPLUS

* SPLUS, OCaml, Haskell, type systems, monads, concurrency

* A smidgeon monads and concurrency, with a bit of Ruby, Ruby and Rails and scripting stuff on the side.

I've recently been I'm working on a couple of projects at once, but am now reaching the moment, and busy to the point that I can take a bit of I'm going to need a breather and look at something else. some point later in the year... But I'm nearly always open to yakking about anything interesting, with somebody interesting.

I'm usually easy to reach at jerrykuch AT gmail.com. Although I often come across as a misanthropic, quasi-shut-in misanthropic crank, I assure you that's only the case about 80% of the time. Ask "Alex":http://swik.net/User:alex if you don't believe that. He might say 85%, but that seems to be within the margin of error...

From a recent Roughly Drafted article:

bq. Spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt by spewing ignorance and false information are efforts to keep the world stuck in the tech rut of the 90s, where no critical thinking was required. Lazy pundits like no possibility of being wrong, so working to keep the technology world enslaved to Microsoft helps them appear to be insightful when they prophesy that Microsoft will eventually come out with a copycat version of whatever anyone else is doing. Sure enough, it happens.

bq. The same Mike Elgan wrote in Computerworld last fall that Microsoft’s Zune “scares Apple to the core,” and announced that Microsoft would “leverage the collective power of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Soapbox (Microsoft's new "YouTube killer") and the Xbox 360” to push Zune adoption. What a celebration of half decade old decrepitude and three new but clearly dismal failures!

It's amazing how much lip service still gets paid to the interlocking Microsoft monopolies in spite of the fact that just about every one of their ballyhooed announcements of the last few years has floundered even with the potential lock-in and network effects that MS managed to exploit so successfully in the past. The old myth that "Microsoft always ships plague-infested rat turd in versions 1 and 2, and then it gets it right and conquers the world with version 3.0" that our management used to reassure us with internally seems to have become progressively more invalid as time has passed.

Unfortunately, from the inside, what the absorption of that myth seemed to me to produce was an intellectually slovenly and unimaginative engineering culture that assumed that pinching off a version 3.0 of something was a necessary and sufficient condition for market domination. This leaves the question of what the company is left with today? A horde of zombie troopers-based product development organization that strains and labors to produce a sub-mediocre product like Vista even after repeated delays and massive cuts of features, the feasibility and usefulness of which were often in doubt from the outset? An "enter new markets by acquisition" business development machine that shows up late to every game, buying the 4th or 5th place not-quite-also-run and then managing to use its boundless resources to make a market loser even more mediocre? An internal corporate culture of partners and plebeians where the latter are either disgruntled malcontents or naive and feckless n00bs, while the former continue to evolve into the near-looting kleptocracy that marks a large company that has passed from vigorous adolesence into senescence with only the briefest stopover at maturity?

h1. Welcome!

I'm, *Jerry Kuch*, one of the developers (along with [[User:marc|Marc]] and [[User:alex|Alex]]) of the new [[SWiK]]. I've worked on a bunch of things including operating systems, multimedia, security and crypto software, niche embedded stuff, broadcast video, a couple of web applications, mathematical programming environments (computer algebra and statistics mainly), virtual machines, network appliances and likely some other things that aren't coming to mind just now. SWiK's the first web-based tool for the open source community I've worked on.

When building systems, I like to see them decomposed into subsystems whose implementation technologies can be independently chosen to make life easy. Pieces can then be replaced, tuned or re-implemented as reality and measurement dictate, hopefully leading to expenditure of less development time. Giant hairballs built out of technologies that are lower-level than they need to be waste time and effort, and suck the morale and will to live out of development organizations.

It appears that someone has given roughly this idea a cute pattern name: "AlternateHardAndSoftLayers":http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?AlternateHardAndSoftLayers.

SWiK, which is mostly implemented in object-oriented "PHP":PHP 5, with a smattering of side-utilities written in Java, and a few bits in "Ruby":Ruby, is sort of an example of this idea, and has served to get me interested in Ruby, which has in turn moved me to look at "Rails":Rails. In particular some of the efficiencies to be gained from metaprogramming in general, and from Ruby's particular expression of some ancient and frequently rediscovered ideas from "Lisp":Lisp and "Smalltalk":Smalltalk has caught my attention.

For the last seven or so months I've been working most with Java, the Java Virtual Machine, JVM code generation, functional programming, R and SPLUS, OCaml, Haskell, type systems, monads and concurrency, with a bit of Ruby and Rails stuff work on the side. I'm working on a couple of projects at the moment, and busy to the point that I'm going to need a breather at some point later in the year... But I'm nearly always open to yakking about anything interesting, with somebody interesting.

I'm usually easy to reach at jerrykuch AT gmail.com. Although I often come across as a misanthropic crank, I assure you that's only the case about 80% of the time. Ask "Alex":http://swik.net/User:alex if you don't believe that. He might say 85%, but that seems to be within the margin of error...