strange symphonies

Sun Tech Days: Day 1

March 8th, 2007 by aizatto

Today was, alright. The morning talks was very very slow, especially since I had to wake up early to arrive on time, even though I know these things start late. But hey, I wanted a chance to win that iPod Nano. Morning talks included the talk by the country manager, the minister of MOSTI, and James Goslings Keynote.

After the opening talk by the Sun country manger Gan Boon San, the audience was in for a surprise. A lucky member of the audience would be going on a full paid trip to the JavaOne conference.

Sadly…that wasn’t me either. Similarly I didn’t win the iPod nano. The Sun Technical Demo was quite interesting, did wake me up. Had a look at Project Looking Glass, and some other cool toys/software. The audience did go wow over Project Looking Glass. I wonder what would have happened if I showed them Beryl/Compiz.
The most interesting track of the day I found was “How to Develop Solaris Parrallel Applications” by Roman Shaposhnik. The presentation discussed parallel programming, and how to Moore’s law is basically dead, and programmers will have to struggle with Ahmdal’s Law. Basically it is about how people will have to cope with processors unable to run faster than normal, and now have to move to a different programming paradigm parallel programming.

Most definitely an interesting topic, and I’ve only dealt with multi-threading for, at most a day. But lucky for me, I was able to answer his questions, and won myself two t-shirts. A “Java, Solaris, Innovation Happens Here” white t-shirt, and a blue “Sun Tech Days Alumni” shirt.

Asked how how the move to multi processor computers will have an impact on kernel design, in terms of the age old argument of monolithic, and micro kernels. Would micro kernels stand a chance?

There was no definitive answer, as he says its too early to judge.

Thats bout it for the day. So off I went home with a few goodies:

• 3 shirts. The remaining shirt is a standard Sun Tech Days shirt given to all participants.
• Duke doll, about 3inches toll.
• An Oracle cup.
• Solaris Express Developers DVD.
• A Sun Tech Days pen, and book.

Sadly I didn’t go home with an Ultra 20 today as well. Two chances tomorrow, one for an Ultra 20, and another for an AMD machine.

If anyone would like a copy of Solaris DVDs do not hesitate to ask me.

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