EwanSilver.com

July 29 2007

The more I look at, and play with, Erlang the more I like it. Having a mindset that handles concurrency is going to give us more bang for our buck in the future, not objects. I think Erlang has something interesting to say here.

• Erlang.org
  The homesite.
• Making reliable distributed systems in the presence of software errors
  Joe Armstrong’s thesis on Erlang.
• Programming Erlang - Software for a Concurrent World
  The new Erlang book.
• What’s all this fuss about Erlang?
  Primer article on Pragmatic Programmers.
• Google tech talk on Erlang
  A recent tech talk by Lennart Ohman.
• Wikipedia reference on Erlang

Technorati Tags: Erlang, concurrency, reliable, distributed

3 comments July 29th, 2007

July 26 2007

• Programming Erlang
• Generator Failures Caused 365 Main Outage
  Yep - failures happen.
• A study in mutual authentication
  It has always concerned me that corporates don’t feel they have to confirm their identity to their customers.
• Two summer scalability conferences

Technorati Tags: Erlang, authentication

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July 23 2007

• Interesting job spec from Vogels…
  My favourite line: “You have at least once tried to understand Paxos by reading the original paper.“. It all sounds like ancient greek to me!

Technorati Tags: Vogels, Paxos

2 comments July 23rd, 2007

July 18 2007

• TED talks
  (Via Bill de hÓra)
• Supersymmetry, Extra Dimensions and the Origin of Mass: Exploring the Nature of the Universe Using PetaScale Data Analysis (PDF: here)
  If you think you have a problem handling a really big real time system then it is likely you haven’t even BEGUN to scratch the surface! Event Driven Architecture writ large! (Via Three-Toed Sloth)
• High-efficiency power supplies for home computers and servers
  Worried about the environment (or more realistically the cost of running your data centre) but need to power a massive cluster of machines? Why not improve the efficiency of your power supplies (google style)?

Technorati Tags: TED, Supersymmetry, PetaScale, Data Analysis, Event Driven Architecture, google

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July 17 2007

• HBase
  A BigTable clone from the Lucence Hadoop team. (Via Greg)
• Lucence Web Service API
• Startup Marketing: Big Bang vs. Darwinian Evolution
  OK, devs (sort of) get the iterative/agile approach but does the rest of the business? If they don’t get it, or unable to act on it (know many agile lawyers?) things are going to get in a pickle.
• Screeching Animatronic Monkeys
  System automation - simian style.
  

Technorati Tags: BigTable, Lucence, Hadoop, Marketing, System automation

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July 15 2007

• Put Your Talent on Display
  Want talent? Display what you already have.
• Web App Autopsy
• apc @ facebook
  Alternative PHP cache at Facebook

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July 14 2007

• Live Code Update in Erlang
  “The point I want to make is that code-upgrade is a part of the application which needs to be designed (like anything else) - it should to be designed together with the fail-over and scalability issues.” At last, I have found someone else who understands that building in the capability to change a system in real time is both powerful and actually easier in a large distributed system.
• binary protocol notes from the facebook hackathon
  The memcache guys had a hackathon at the Facebook offices a couple of weeks ago and are starting to make some progress on implementing a binary protocol.
• Google Scalability Conference talks available
  Greg Linden has links to almost all the Google Scalability videos.

Technorati Tags: Erlang, memcache, Facebook

Add comment July 14th, 2007

July 10 2007

• life-at-google-the-microsoftie-perspective
  Interesting that the comments on the blog from what appears to be the Microsoft contingent are trying to skin the guy alive for posting what appears to be a reasonable comparison on the two companies. Makes you wonder how much of a flash in the pan the Scoble openess was…
• Mingle
  Just got my beta invite for Mingle from Thoughtworks - gonna have a play and see what it is like.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Scoble, Mingle, Thoughtworks

Add comment July 10th, 2007

July 8 2007

• Reading references
  Some references from Werner Vogels. VERY interested to see that Werner Vogels was suggesting Steve Grand’s book “Creation: Life and How to Make it“. I truly believe that biological approaches to system development are what we are going to need to take us beyond the next level of systems development and I am heartened that someone like Werner is pushing this book. Go and buy it!
• Seattle Scalability Conference: Amazon on Data Storage
  Dan’s feedback on the some of the Google Scalability conference. Gotta love the biology!
• Seattle Conference on Scalability videos
  Some more links to the conference, via StorageMojo.
• The iPhone’s headphone jack and world domination
  Take a commodity product - headphones - make sure your product doesn’t quite work with it and then get everyone to change the commodity product to fit your requirements, increasing your branding and marketing power in the process. Normally I would say this was a crazy idea but I can see it working with all the hype at the moment - who knows..

Technorati Tags: Vogels, Steve Grand, Creation: Life and How to Make it

Add comment July 8th, 2007