Client taming
Taming the clients vision into either their budget or time scale...
Wednesday 29 October 2008, 6:12 PM
Microsoft research does the PDC keynote
Wednesdays keynote here at PDC was given by Rick Rashid from Microsoft Research, some interesting highlights of the reams of facts and figures that were given here
- Microsoft Research is modelled on an academic structure like a university faculty
- 15% of the money Microsoft spends on research goes to outside researchers.
- They grow at rate equivalent to creating a Berkley computer science faculty every year
- 20% of US computer science Phds have worked at MSR at some point.
They've also been busy on doing formal proving of software in particular they have partially solved the halting problem, they have a product called terminator that can say if C program will complete, it doesn't work for all programs but it does for a lot of the real world programs.
Dryad and DryadLINQ are two new technologies for cluster computing which allows management of programming across multiple clusters with a sensible query language. There was a little dig at Google with a comment that this gives you much more power than map-reduce algorithm that powers a lot of googles code.
There then followed a segment about using small remote sensors for the environment. Lots of good and worthy stuff but it's not something to really excite a geeky audience.
In the sex and sizzle department, there was a demonstration of Boku which is a programming language for kids. It looks like a perfect system to generate small 3d games with visual actors on screen. Programming is done with the XBox 360 controller and an iconic programming interface.
We were shown in a very quick five minute hello world demo how to generate a little shootem up which promptly destroyed Mat MacLauriens player character. Looks like a great system, worth noting that the kids who have play tested this said that the ability to shoot was mandatory.
Also mentioned were the RoboChamps program and the new version of the World wide telescope project which has 1.5 million active users.
The other fun technology on show was a Microsoft Research in Cambridge project called SecondLight which expands out the surface touch technology. Using an LCD shutter and a projector they sync up the shutter with the projector and project one layer onto the main surface and secondary projection which can then be shown on a diffusing surface (a piece of tracing paper). One example which was interesting was on the main screen a image was being shown and then the presenter took a scroll unrolled it over the screen and text was magically revealed.
The final segment of this demonstration was done with a small panel that had the ability to be tilted and the image displayed was distorted to allow the user who was looking at the panel to see the image correctly. A couple of their suggested applications were the ability to literally scoop a window from the main screen and then work on it on the new surface or wave the surface "through" a 3D image to get a slice of data.
Phew anyway off to catch up with panel on the future of programming languages.
- Microsoft Research is modelled on an academic structure like a university faculty
- 15% of the money Microsoft spends on research goes to outside researchers.
- They grow at rate equivalent to creating a Berkley computer science faculty every year
- 20% of US computer science Phds have worked at MSR at some point.
They've also been busy on doing formal proving of software in particular they have partially solved the halting problem, they have a product called terminator that can say if C program will complete, it doesn't work for all programs but it does for a lot of the real world programs.
Dryad and DryadLINQ are two new technologies for cluster computing which allows management of programming across multiple clusters with a sensible query language. There was a little dig at Google with a comment that this gives you much more power than map-reduce algorithm that powers a lot of googles code.
There then followed a segment about using small remote sensors for the environment. Lots of good and worthy stuff but it's not something to really excite a geeky audience.
In the sex and sizzle department, there was a demonstration of Boku which is a programming language for kids. It looks like a perfect system to generate small 3d games with visual actors on screen. Programming is done with the XBox 360 controller and an iconic programming interface.
We were shown in a very quick five minute hello world demo how to generate a little shootem up which promptly destroyed Mat MacLauriens player character. Looks like a great system, worth noting that the kids who have play tested this said that the ability to shoot was mandatory.
Also mentioned were the RoboChamps program and the new version of the World wide telescope project which has 1.5 million active users.
The other fun technology on show was a Microsoft Research in Cambridge project called SecondLight which expands out the surface touch technology. Using an LCD shutter and a projector they sync up the shutter with the projector and project one layer onto the main surface and secondary projection which can then be shown on a diffusing surface (a piece of tracing paper). One example which was interesting was on the main screen a image was being shown and then the presenter took a scroll unrolled it over the screen and text was magically revealed.
The final segment of this demonstration was done with a small panel that had the ability to be tilted and the image displayed was distorted to allow the user who was looking at the panel to see the image correctly. A couple of their suggested applications were the ability to literally scoop a window from the main screen and then work on it on the new surface or wave the surface "through" a 3D image to get a slice of data.
Phew anyway off to catch up with panel on the future of programming languages.
Tuesday 28 October 2008, 8:22 PM
Heisenbugs
If you're at the PDC, I can only suggest that you check the Microsoft Research Area. There are some great demos being given of Microsoft Chess. Chess is a tool Microsoft have created to help track down so called "heisenbugs". These are usually bugs where the act of trying to debug them, or putting in trace code, alters the relative timing of your application and causes the problem to disappear. In this new multi-core world that developers live in, as we add mulitple threads to our applications, we are much more likely to create this class of bug.
Chess is designed to solve this problem. It will help if you have unit tests for your application (you do, of course?), which Chess then runs multiple times, varying the timing across your threads, looking looking for problems such as data races. You can give some clues, but it will pre-empt scheduling and attempt to reschedule when variables which have been marked as being volatile change, or when the programmer uses mutexs to attempt to force threads to run singularly.
The demos (which I videoed but I'm have problem getting off my camera) are impressive, using PLINQ to generate a parallel program with a deliberate data race problem. The code usually runs correctly, but once in, say, a 1000 times, the code will fail. Using Chess as host for your tests it alters the order the threads run in (presumably by doing a relative drift), and the test eventually fails.
When the test fails, it generates some C# attributes you can then use to decorate your test methods (it seemed be a 100-200 character stream), which means that the test should always fail. What I'm not quite clear about is how robust these relative timing changes are in the face of your changing code, but its a good start.
Currently the testing environment is hosted using team foundation system and using the Microsoft unit-testing framework. For those folks who are using the downlevel Visual Studio editions, there is also a command-line version available.
It's not currently available, but I was told it would be in a couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, the project website is here: http://research.microsoft.com/chess/
Chess is designed to solve this problem. It will help if you have unit tests for your application (you do, of course?), which Chess then runs multiple times, varying the timing across your threads, looking looking for problems such as data races. You can give some clues, but it will pre-empt scheduling and attempt to reschedule when variables which have been marked as being volatile change, or when the programmer uses mutexs to attempt to force threads to run singularly.
The demos (which I videoed but I'm have problem getting off my camera) are impressive, using PLINQ to generate a parallel program with a deliberate data race problem. The code usually runs correctly, but once in, say, a 1000 times, the code will fail. Using Chess as host for your tests it alters the order the threads run in (presumably by doing a relative drift), and the test eventually fails.
When the test fails, it generates some C# attributes you can then use to decorate your test methods (it seemed be a 100-200 character stream), which means that the test should always fail. What I'm not quite clear about is how robust these relative timing changes are in the face of your changing code, but its a good start.
Currently the testing environment is hosted using team foundation system and using the Microsoft unit-testing framework. For those folks who are using the downlevel Visual Studio editions, there is also a command-line version available.
It's not currently available, but I was told it would be in a couple of weeks. In the meanwhile, the project website is here: http://research.microsoft.com/chess/
Tuesday 28 October 2008, 6:13 PM
Windows 7 launches
Microsoft announced Windows 7 and the new R2 version of Server 2008 today during the keynote speech. Initially Windows 7 looks similar to Vista, but there a lot of new features that have been added.
Under the skin, Microsoft has been working hard. Boot times have been reduced, and certainly the review laptop Microsoft provided has a fairly snappy boot time. Microsoft has been working with OEMs to improve battery life -- simple things such as reducing the timer frequency can improve battery life by up to 10%. The networking stack has had new diagnostics added to help users figure out exactly where the problem lies.
Memory management has been rewritten with a new fault-tolerant heap which should help to keep applications running. Microsoft have also tuned the desktop windows manager to use less memory under Windows 7, which should produce much better performance.
Steve Sinofsky on stage showed the netbook with 1GB of RAM that he is using as his day-to-day laptop, claiming that after boot, he still has half the memory left. This bodes well for Microsoft's attempt to kill off that.
The taskbar has been rewritten with a new grouping feature and finally allows the user to reorder their windows. Hovering over a group of application windows shows a preview of those windows and allows users to close the windows they are no longer using.
Networking at home has been rewritten with Microsoft now recognising that laptops now move from the corporate network to the home wireless network. There is now a concept of a home network and automatic sharing of pictures and music. Windows Media Player is now able to play iPod files which don’t have Fairplay DRM.
A new concept of libraries has been added to allow searching across different folders on multiple machines. The same concept has been also been added to Live mail, which unifies multiple mail providers in one interface.
For corporate IT, there are new features that Microsoft seem very proud of. They have made upgrading existing computers easier by extending automated installs -- a complete install takes under half an hour and can be made to keep existing documents that the user has on the PC. There are new tools for IT to support users with a new diagnostics and recovery toolkit, error reporting and powershell has a new version with extra support for scripting group policy.
Bitlocker encryption can now be enforced on USB drives via group policy, which should please the bosses of UK civil servants. A new virtual server feature allows applications to be embedded into the desktop and appear as a regular window rather than in a separate virtual PC windows.
Developers who use virtual machines will pleased to hear VHDs can now be attached in drive manager, and it’s now possible to natively boot the VHD from the boot menu instead of running the machine in virtual PC.
Also for developers, remote desktop now supports multi-monitors -- this raised a huge cheer from the audience here in LA.
Under the skin, Microsoft has been working hard. Boot times have been reduced, and certainly the review laptop Microsoft provided has a fairly snappy boot time. Microsoft has been working with OEMs to improve battery life -- simple things such as reducing the timer frequency can improve battery life by up to 10%. The networking stack has had new diagnostics added to help users figure out exactly where the problem lies.
Memory management has been rewritten with a new fault-tolerant heap which should help to keep applications running. Microsoft have also tuned the desktop windows manager to use less memory under Windows 7, which should produce much better performance.
Steve Sinofsky on stage showed the netbook with 1GB of RAM that he is using as his day-to-day laptop, claiming that after boot, he still has half the memory left. This bodes well for Microsoft's attempt to kill off that.
The taskbar has been rewritten with a new grouping feature and finally allows the user to reorder their windows. Hovering over a group of application windows shows a preview of those windows and allows users to close the windows they are no longer using.
Networking at home has been rewritten with Microsoft now recognising that laptops now move from the corporate network to the home wireless network. There is now a concept of a home network and automatic sharing of pictures and music. Windows Media Player is now able to play iPod files which don’t have Fairplay DRM.
A new concept of libraries has been added to allow searching across different folders on multiple machines. The same concept has been also been added to Live mail, which unifies multiple mail providers in one interface.
For corporate IT, there are new features that Microsoft seem very proud of. They have made upgrading existing computers easier by extending automated installs -- a complete install takes under half an hour and can be made to keep existing documents that the user has on the PC. There are new tools for IT to support users with a new diagnostics and recovery toolkit, error reporting and powershell has a new version with extra support for scripting group policy.
Bitlocker encryption can now be enforced on USB drives via group policy, which should please the bosses of UK civil servants. A new virtual server feature allows applications to be embedded into the desktop and appear as a regular window rather than in a separate virtual PC windows.
Developers who use virtual machines will pleased to hear VHDs can now be attached in drive manager, and it’s now possible to natively boot the VHD from the boot menu instead of running the machine in virtual PC.
Also for developers, remote desktop now supports multi-monitors -- this raised a huge cheer from the audience here in LA.
Sunday 26 October 2008, 4:01 PM
PDC Day minus one
PDC Day -1
A couple of months ago ZDNets editor Rupert Goodwins asked me if I'd like to go to Microsofts Professional Developer conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. PDC is a odd Microsoft conference in that it's a conference where Microsoft like to show some of the near future technologies. Often stuff shown at PDC doesn't get turned into a real product (or like Vista the vision originally shown is very different from that which ships). PDC also doesn't happen every year, sometimes Microsoft decideds there isn't really enough new stuff to show us.
This tends to mean that for your average developer PDC isn't always a no brainer of a conference to go to, often the TechEd conferences are a better value for money (and there is a european version) or perhaps MIX in Las Vegas is a better bet for those who are more web orientated.
This years PDC is looking pretty good. There is the big public Windows 7 launch happening and lots of interesting technologies relating to cloud based services seem to be coming. There are also the improvements to C# and by the looks of it some interesting parallel computing announcements being made. I've been tasked with trying to look fairly deeply into the internals of Windows particularly concentrating on whats new for developers.
My current work a day laptop is a Toshiba X200 with a 17" screen and weighs what feels like a ton (I work with body worn video for the police so I need something with some power), which makes the thought of shleping it around a conference all day a bit of a pain. However I'm now according to Uncle Sam and the Visa I had to get a "proper" journalist so a quick look at the market place to see which netbook format machine I'd like to take with me and a phone call later I've snaffled a very nice HP2133 to work with.
The HP2133 comes with SUSE linux enterprise desktop on it out of the box. In spite of my best efforts (by shrinking partitions) I couldn't persuade both Linux and Vista to work on the same hard disk. Sadly HP don't supply a rescue disk for SUSE install so I just plain gave up and installed Vista on half the hard disc leaving the other half available to possibly try a windows 7 install on (I'll find out over the week if this is possible). Since this is a Microsoft conference I couldn't go with a Linux only install.
In comparison to my original Asus 701 Eee (which I often take to conferences to take notes on) the HP feels much more solidly built and the keyboard is a much better experience. The real bonus is the screen which has a 1280 x 768 resolution and makes it actually possible to use the machine for development work in a modern IDE. While development on the Asus is possible it feels far to cramped on screen.
The HP2133 is a little underpowered for Vista with it Via C7 processor, but manages to support Aero Glass with feeling too sluggish. Out of the box the machine only had 1GB which seemed to result in a lot of swapping too and from the hard disc which really killed both the battery and my patience. I stole one of the 2GB SODIMMs out of my Toshiba and after fitting that performance seems to be usable. To be fair to HP they don't normally supply Vista with the 1GB machines only supplying Vista on the 1.4Ghz machines with 2GB of RAM.
Weight wise the HP seems to be about average for the 9-10" netbook market place and pretty much perfect for use at a conference, battery life does however seem to be a little on the short side with the standard 3 cell battery back (HP couldn't get me one with the six cell pack). If I get a chance while I'm out at PDC I'll see if I can find some users of the other machines (the Dell mini in particular intrigues me) that are available and ask for their thoughts.
A couple of months ago ZDNets editor Rupert Goodwins asked me if I'd like to go to Microsofts Professional Developer conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. PDC is a odd Microsoft conference in that it's a conference where Microsoft like to show some of the near future technologies. Often stuff shown at PDC doesn't get turned into a real product (or like Vista the vision originally shown is very different from that which ships). PDC also doesn't happen every year, sometimes Microsoft decideds there isn't really enough new stuff to show us.
This tends to mean that for your average developer PDC isn't always a no brainer of a conference to go to, often the TechEd conferences are a better value for money (and there is a european version) or perhaps MIX in Las Vegas is a better bet for those who are more web orientated.
This years PDC is looking pretty good. There is the big public Windows 7 launch happening and lots of interesting technologies relating to cloud based services seem to be coming. There are also the improvements to C# and by the looks of it some interesting parallel computing announcements being made. I've been tasked with trying to look fairly deeply into the internals of Windows particularly concentrating on whats new for developers.
My current work a day laptop is a Toshiba X200 with a 17" screen and weighs what feels like a ton (I work with body worn video for the police so I need something with some power), which makes the thought of shleping it around a conference all day a bit of a pain. However I'm now according to Uncle Sam and the Visa I had to get a "proper" journalist so a quick look at the market place to see which netbook format machine I'd like to take with me and a phone call later I've snaffled a very nice HP2133 to work with.
The HP2133 comes with SUSE linux enterprise desktop on it out of the box. In spite of my best efforts (by shrinking partitions) I couldn't persuade both Linux and Vista to work on the same hard disk. Sadly HP don't supply a rescue disk for SUSE install so I just plain gave up and installed Vista on half the hard disc leaving the other half available to possibly try a windows 7 install on (I'll find out over the week if this is possible). Since this is a Microsoft conference I couldn't go with a Linux only install.
In comparison to my original Asus 701 Eee (which I often take to conferences to take notes on) the HP feels much more solidly built and the keyboard is a much better experience. The real bonus is the screen which has a 1280 x 768 resolution and makes it actually possible to use the machine for development work in a modern IDE. While development on the Asus is possible it feels far to cramped on screen.
The HP2133 is a little underpowered for Vista with it Via C7 processor, but manages to support Aero Glass with feeling too sluggish. Out of the box the machine only had 1GB which seemed to result in a lot of swapping too and from the hard disc which really killed both the battery and my patience. I stole one of the 2GB SODIMMs out of my Toshiba and after fitting that performance seems to be usable. To be fair to HP they don't normally supply Vista with the 1GB machines only supplying Vista on the 1.4Ghz machines with 2GB of RAM.
Weight wise the HP seems to be about average for the 9-10" netbook market place and pretty much perfect for use at a conference, battery life does however seem to be a little on the short side with the standard 3 cell battery back (HP couldn't get me one with the six cell pack). If I get a chance while I'm out at PDC I'll see if I can find some users of the other machines (the Dell mini in particular intrigues me) that are available and ask for their thoughts.
