Seattle Conference on Scalability: MapReduce Used on Large Data Sets
Google engEDU
30 min – Jun 23, 2007

Google Tech Talks
June 23, 2007

ABSTRACT

2007 Google Seattle Conference on Scalability:
Using MapReduce on Large Geographic Datasets
Speaker: Barry Brumitt, Google, Inc.

MapReduce is a programming model and library designed to
simplify distributed processing of huge datasets on large clusters of
computers. This is achieved by providing a general mechanism
which largely relieves the programmer from having to handle
challenging distributed computing problems such as data
distribution, process coordination, fault tolerance, and scaling. While
working on Google maps, I’ve used MapReduce extensively to
process and transform datasets which describe the earth’s
geography. In this talk, I’ll introduce MapReduce, demonstrating its
broad applicability through example problems ranging from basic
data transformation to complex graph processing, all the in the
context of geographic data. Read the rest of this entry »

Model-Based Testing: Black or White?
Google engEDU
1 hr – Aug 27, 2007

Google Tech Talks
August 27, 2007

ABSTRACT

Model-based testing can help to reduce the cost of testing and increase its effectiveness. Instead of designing test cases by hand, model-based testing allows a test engineer to automatically generate test cases from a model of the system under test.

After a brief overview of model-based testing, this talk will compare two different kinds of test model: black-box models and white-box models. Black-box models are easier for programmers to write and tools to use, while white-box models require more sophisticated notations and modelling skills, but can allow more sophisticated test generation.

These two styles of models will be illustrated by using two different model-based testing tools to test some example applications, such as a web-based library system. An open-source tool, ModelJUnit, will be used to illustrate test generation from several black-box test models written in Java. A commercial tool, LEIRIOS Test Designer, will be used to illustrate test generation from white-box test models written in UML

Speaker: Mark Utting

Mark Utting has been developing and using model-based testing tools since 2000. Recently, he co-authored the first industry-oriented book specifically on model-based testing, and developed the open-source ModelJUnit tool to illustrate some of the techniques in the book. He has also been a consultant for the design of commercial model-based testing tools, such as the LEIRIOS Test Designer from LEIRIOS Technologies.

Dr Utting works as an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Waikato, New Zealand. Prior to this, he worked as an analyst/programmer in the Australian software industry for several years and as a postdoctoral researcher on theorem proving and real-time refinement. His PhD was in the area of refinement calculus techniques for object-oriented programs. He is a member of the IFIP Working Group 2.3 on Programming Methodology.

Home page: http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~marku Read the rest of this entry »

How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters
Google engEDU
1 hr – Jan 24, 2007

Google Tech Talks
January 24, 2007

ABSTRACT

Every day around the world, software developers spend much of their time working with a variety of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Some are integral to the core platform, some provide access to widely distributed frameworks, and some are written in-house for use by a few developers. Nearly all programmers occasionally function as API designers, whether they know it or not. A well-designed API can be a great asset to the organization that wrote it and to all who use it. Good APIs increase the pleasure and productivity of the developers who use them, the quality of the software they produce, and ultimately, the corporate bottom line. Conversely, poorly written APIs are a constant thorn in the developer’s side, and have been known to harm the bottom line to the point of bankruptcy. Given the importance of good API design, surprisingly little has been written on the subject. In this talk, I’ll attempt to help you recognize good and bad APIs and I’ll offer specific suggestions for writing good ones.

This talk is part of the Advanced Topics in Programming Series at Google. Read the rest of this entry »

Advanced Topics in Programming Languages: Concurrency/message passing Newsqueak
Google engEDU
57 min – May 9, 2007

Google Tech Talks
May 9, 2007

ABSTRACT

Sometimes what you want to say is hard to write or hard to get right in the programming model you’re using. But how do we try another? There are many powerful programming models but most are not well supported by today’s mainstream languages. Concurrency is one.

This talk will discuss the programming model of Newsqueak, a concurrent programming language I designed and implemented to make it easier to write interactive applications in the late 1980s. It acts nothing like the tools used for that purpose today, but its ideas still have relevance. The language’s users taught me a lot about concurrency, but they also taught me a lot about interface design and how to think about interactive – and interacting – systems. Read the rest of this entry »

Runtimes, Robots, and Clusters
Google engEDU
43 min – Mar 30, 2007

Google Tech Talks
March 29, 2007

ABSTRACT

We want powerful, linguistic abstractions for concurrent and parallel control of computational devices, be they small or big. As a step towards this, we’ve been developing the Transterpreter[1], a small (8KB), portable VM for a growing family of programming languages. The most complete and interesting language we support is occam-pi[2].

In this talk, we’ll talk a bit about the journey that brought us here, paying particular attention to things we think are cool. Typically, "things we think are cool" involve using linguistic abstraction to make programming tasks involving concurrency and parallelism easier. So, expect to see some wireless sensor network bits, LEGO robots, and maybe a distributed app or two. Read the rest of this entry »