Stephan Herhut

JSConf 2012 Arizona

2012-05-17T20:33:18-07:00

I had the great pleasure to speak at this year’s JSConf in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona about my work on River Trail. All presentations were recorded and have recently been posted online. Below is mine. The cowboy hat is my tribute to JSConf’s theme. Enjoy!

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IFL 2011

2011-09-30T20:33:18-07:00

I will be attending this year’s Symposium on Implementation and Application of Functional Languages in Lawrence, KS. I’ll be around from the 2nd to 5th of October. As usual, if you are somewhere close by and want to catch up, drop me a note and let’s meet.

Hope to see you there.

Apple-CORE Meeting in Amsterdam

2010-10-25T14:16:29-07:00

I will be in Amsterdam from the 27th to 28th of October for an Apple-CORE meeting. The meeting itself is not open to the public. However, if you would like to meet up, just drop me a note. It is my first visit to the new buildings of the University of Amsterdam in the Science Park. Looks beautiful on the web. Let’s see how it feels.

DAMP 2011

2010-09-16T14:08:33-07:00

I have the pleasure to serve as a program committee member for next year’s DAMP workshop. DAMP 2011 is co-located with POPL 2011 and thus takes place in Austin, Texas, USA. It is a one day workshop on the Sunday before POPL, i.e., the 23rd of January.

Note that paper submission closes in a little less than a month. If you have anything exciting to report, please consider submitting it to DAMP as this will give me a really good excuse to learn more about it.

S-Hack Russia

2010-09-14T11:34:18-07:00

For the first time we take the S-Hack event outside of Europe. This year’s second workshop on all things SaC and S-Net will take place at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch in Novosibirsk, Russia. I have the pleasure to lecture on practical aspects of programming in SaC. There is no schedule, nor website yet but I will update this post as more informations becomes available. Further details can be found on the workshop’s website.

If you happen to be in Novosibirsk between the 24th of September and 1st of October, just drop me a note and we could meet over some Vodka.

ERIC 2010

2010-09-11T11:12:47-07:00

Our paper/abstract for Intel’s ERIC 2010 was accepted for presentation and Sven-Bodo Scholz will give the corresponding talk in the many-core/parallel programming track. He will be presenting our ideas on

Single Assignment C: HP2 Programming for Heterogeneous Concurrent Architectures

HP2 stands for high performance and high productivity. The event is free to attend and registration seems still open. So maybe I will see you in Braunschweig?

IFL 2010

2010-07-28T20:40:41-07:00

I will give a talk at this year’s IFL symposium on

Concurrent Non-Deferred Reference Counting on the Microgrid: First Experiences.

This work is one result from the hardware/software co-design with the Microgrid group at the University of Amsterdam as part of the Apple-CORE project. The fundamental problem with reference counting is that it requires some form of synchronisation if performed concurrently.

One approach we have used in SAC so far was to use multiple copies of the reference counter and only create a consistent global state at synchronisation points. However, this does not scale to massively parallel architectures like the Microgrid. Yet, having so many cores at disposal allows us to dedicate one or more just to reference counting. We use the on-chip ring network to implement asynchronous messaging between cores to delegate reference counting.

A first prototype implementation is ready and we are evaluating it at the moment. So, stay tuned for more details.

Ph.D.

2010-06-25T22:11:24-07:00

I have successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis titled

Auxiliary Computations. A Framework for a Step-Wise, Non-Disruptive Introduction of Static Guarantees to Untyped Programs Using Partial Evaluation Techniques.

My thesis was accepted without modifications by my three examiners: Bruce Christianson, Olivier Danvy and Kevin Hammond. I will make my thesis available here as soon as I have found the time to reformat it for publication.

I am most grateful to my two supervisors, Sven-Bodo Scholz and Alex Shafarenko, for their support and guidance. A big thank you!

CPC 2010

2010-06-15T10:28:30-07:00

I will be at CPC 2010 (15th Workshop on Compilers for Parallel Computing) in Vienna beginning 7th of June. The paper I will present is titled

Thread-Local Stacks, a Light-Weight Alternative to Thread-Local Heaps.

It is a result of my work in the Apple-CORE project, in particular on programming the many-core Microgrid architecture. I am currently focussing on making implicit memory management work in such a setting and thread-local stacks are one steps towards that goal.

Another line of research I was involved with is Tim van Deurzen’s Bachelor’s thesis on dynamic runtime adaption of shape generic programs. The paper that describes his work is titled

An Adaptive Compilation Framework for Generic Data-Parallel Array Programming.

Clemens Grelck, his supervisor at the University of Amsterdam, will give the corresponding talk.

As always, if you are in or around Vienna, give me a shout so we can meet.

PLDI 2010

2010-05-18T18:05:45-07:00

I will be attending PLDI this year. This is exiting in its own right, however, as a plus it gives me the pleasure to visit the SAC group’s Canadian outpost over at Snake Island Research. After last year’s successful SAC on the Train, it is time to catch up again and work some more on symbiotic expressions and their exploitation for program optimisation.

As usual, if you plan to go to PLDI or are in or around Toronto from the 4th to 12th of June this year, drop me a note.

MMMR in Cambridge

2010-05-18T17:55:53-07:00

I have the great pleasure to give a talk at the Memory Management and Managed Runtimes workshop 2010 in Cambridge. I will be talking about recent ideas we had in the context of garbage collection via reference counting on massively parallel architectures. This is part of my work in the Apple-CORE project on auto-parallelisation for the Microgrid many-core architecture. However, I believe that our ideas apply in a wider context, as well. The title of the talk is

Asynchronous Distributed Reference Counting

and an abstract is available online. I hope to get some feedback on our ideas. So if you are into concurrent garbage collection, do come by!

SAC DevCon in Amsterdam

2010-05-18T17:47:11-07:00

I will be in Amsterdam for two days beginning 26th of May for this year’s first SAC DevCon. It is the the seventh in a now long standing series of workshops themed around recent advances in the SAC project. Although the workshop is by invitation only, just drop me or this year’s workshop chair an email if you are interested to join.

S-Hack 2010

2010-03-03T18:14:54-08:00

The Compiler Technology and Computer Architecture Group at the University of Hertfordshire, which I am part of, is organizing another S-Hack this year (29th March to 31st March). If you are interested in CTCA’s programming language offerings, i.e. , the data-parallel language SAC and the concurrency modeling language S-Net, why not come and join in.

I will most likely be giving a session about SAC on the last day.

Intel SCC in Braunschweig

2010-02-22T13:51:42-08:00

I will attend the European Intel SCC Symposium in Braunschweig, Germany, on the 16th of March 2010. Those living in the US or being able to fly over (I could not make it, as I had to be in Prague at that time) already known what Intel’s Single-Chip Cloud Computer is all about from the corresponding US event.

I am looking forward to meeting the community in Braunschweig. The SCC sounds like a really promising target for both languages I am involved in: SAC and S-Net. So, stay tuned!

FUN at Standard Chartered Bank

2010-02-16T13:40:32-08:00

On very short notice, I have decided to attend the Fun In The Afternoon gathering at Standard Chartered Bank in London tomorrow. So, if you feel like some fun and want to enjoy the atmosphere of big money for once, why not come, as well. Details are on the FUN website.

Apple-CORE meeting in Prague

2010-02-09T10:23:54-08:00

Another Apple-CORE project meeting is coming up, this time in the lovely city of Prague. As I haven’t been there for a while, it might be a good opportunity to catch up. I will be in Prague from Wednesday the 10th to Friday the 12th of February. So if you want to meet up, give me a shout.

Apple-CORE meeting in Amsterdam

2009-11-08T15:18:49-08:00

I will be in Amsterdam from the 9th to 10th of November for an Apple-CORE meeting. The meeting itself is not open to the public. However, if you would like to meet up, just drop me a note.

Int'l SaC Developement & Apple-CORE Summit

2009-11-03T02:16:38-08:00

We are holding another SAC Developers’ Camp in Loch Ness, Scotland, this year. This year’s motto is stabilization, stabilization, stabilization. The entire group will head off to meet Nessie on the 13th of November and return with an amazingly stable compiler on the 20th.

Apart from compiler work, we will have some of our partners within the Apple-CORE project around to work on the integration of our various tool-chains.

SAC on the train

2009-09-24T16:22:37-07:00

We will do a mini workshop / developer camp on the train from New York to Toronto, right after IFL 2009. As if that weren’t exiting enough, I will get a chance to visit the headquarters of Snake Island Research Inc. right on Ward’s Island.

Ifl 2009

2009-09-03T16:08:53-07:00

I will be at IFL 2009 at Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA, giving a talk on some amazing results on compiling nested data-parallel programs to the Microgrid architecture. So if you are somewhere near New York from 22nd to 25th of September, give me a shout or even better join the fun.

Apple-CORE review in Amsterdam

2009-01-26T13:34:21-08:00

I will be in Amsterdam for the annual Apple-CORE review taking place on the 9th to the 11th of February. The meeting is not open to the public but, as always, if you are around and up for a drink in the evening, just drop me a note.

DAMP 09

2009-01-01T15:31:06-08:00

I got a paper accepted at this year’s Workshop on Declarative Aspects of Multicore Programming in Savannah, Georgia. The title of the paper is

Controlling Chaos. On Safe Side-Effects in Data-Parallel Operations.

Unfortunately, I cannot make it to the workshop myself but Sven-Bodo Scholz will give a talk on my behalf.

SaC Developer Camp 2008

2008-10-23T13:26:17-07:00

After quite a long time of planning we got together another developer camp. I still have vivid memories of our last venture in Marielyst, Denmark. This time, we will be going to Invermoriston, Scotland for a week starting on Halloween. The full location is kept as a secret but if you want to join in or just say hello, drop me a note and I’ll see what can be arranged.

So off to Loch Ness to tame the beast!

IFL 2008

2008-08-22T19:49:17-07:00

I will be at this year’s Symposium on Implementation and Application of Functional Languages (IFL) at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK from the 10th to 12th of September. This year, I won’t give any talk but merely enjoy meeting the community and be on duty as one of the local organisers. See you in Hatfield!

Intel, Santa Clara

2008-05-11T14:37:01-07:00

I will be working as an intern at Intel in Santa Clara this summer. Anyone in the Bay Area who wants to meet up: Drop me an email!

Fun in the Afternoon

2008-05-10T00:48:30-07:00

I will give a talk at the Fun in the Afternoon meeting on the 15th of May at the University of Hertfordshire. The Title is:

The Type is the Value - Or a Part of It

Maybe I’ll see you in Hatfield!

SAC/S-Net Workshop

2008-03-11T23:22:37-07:00

We will be running a workshop on programming in SaC and S-Net from the 14th - 16th of April. Here is an excerpt from the announcement:

I may have told some of you already that we are running an S-Net/SaC workshop at Hertfordshire on the 14-16 April with the following preliminary agenda:

1. A day on SaC: introduction, the language, the programming tools and some examples.

2. A day on SNet: introduction, the language, the philosophy and practice, the programming tools and examples.

3. Application development under guidance.

The idea of the workshop is to train programmers to use S-Net, and for them to have a chance to develop a small application while having experts on hand. SaC training is included as SaC appears to be a very useful box language. However, we can equally well help people to write box code in C but be prepared for a rather unwieldy interface with S-Net.

If you are interested in some hands-on experience of SaC and/or S-Net, why not come along? See the event’s website for further details on how to register.

STRI Showcase Event

2008-03-01T18:49:32-08:00

The Science and Technology Research Institute of the University of Hertfordshire is holding a showcase event from the 5th to 7th of March. I will be around to present a poster I have done jointly with Frank Penczek:

From Solo to Symphony: A Unified Paradigm to Program Single-, Multi-, and Many-Core Architectures in an Increasingly Ubiquitous Computing-Environment.

The accompanying talk will be on the 6th at 4pm in room R141 at the de Havilland Campus.

THALES, Paris

2008-02-05T16:00:00-08:00

I will be in Paris from the 12th to the 15th of February to work with our partners from THALES Research & Technology. We will develop a demo application using both languages I am involved with: SAC and S-Net.

OOPSLA 2007 and APL 2007

2007-10-01T15:58:03-07:00

I will give a presentation at the ACM SIGAPL Conference about a novel means to generically program on nested - or structured as some prefer to call them - arrays. The corresponding paper is called Generic Programming on the Nesting Structure of Arrays. As I will be flying all the way to Montreal, I plan to attend the OOPSLA 2007 conference on object oriented programming, as both conferences are conveniently co-located.

ICFP 2007 and PLPV 2007

2007-09-05T15:53:06-07:00

As I will be in Freiburg anyway, I decided to use the opportunity to attend the ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming, as well. Furthermore, I will be around at the co-located workshop on language-based approaches to program verification.

See you in Freiburg!

IFL 2007

2007-09-04T15:48:10-07:00

I will be giving a presentation at this year’s International Symposium on Implementation and Application of Functional Language. The paper is titled From Contracts Towards Dependent Types: Proofs by Partial Evaluation. The idea is to use explicit contracts to express domain constraints, etc. and to use existing partial evaluation techniques to prove as many of these constraints at compile time as possible. Thus, you gain the static safety of dependent types where possible and retain the flexibility of weaker typed languages where needed.