Workload Characterization of JVM Languages

Decanato - Facoltà di scienze informatiche

Data d'inizio: 9 Maggio 2014

Data di fine: 10 Maggio 2014

You are cordially invited to attend the PhD Dissertation Defense of Aibek SARIMBEKOV on Friday, May 9th 2014 at 15h30 in room A33 (Red building)
 
Abstract:
Being developed with a single language in mind, namely Java, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) nowadays is targeted by numerous programming languages. Automatic memory management, Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation, and adaptive optimizations provided by the JVM make it an attractive target for different language implementations. Even though being targeted by so many languages, the JVM has been tuned with respect to characteristics  of Java programs only – different heuristics for the garbage collector or compiler optimizations are focused more on Java programs. In this dissertation, we aim at contributing to the understanding of the workloads imposed on the JVM by both dynamically-typed and statically-typed JVM languages. We introduce a new set of dynamic metrics and an easy-to-use toolchain for collecting the latter. We apply our toolchain to applications written in six JVM languages – Java, Scala, Clojure, Jython, JRuby, and JavaScript. We identify differences and commonalities between the examined languages and discuss their implications. Moreover, we have a close look at one of the most efficient compiler optimizations – method inlining. We present the decision tree of the HotSpot JVM’s JIT compiler and analyze how well the JVM performs in inlining the workloads written in different JVM languages.

Dissertation Committee:

  • Prof. Walter Binder, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Research Advisor)
  • Prof. Matthias Hauswirth, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Internal Member)
  • Prof. Cesare Pautasso, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland (Internal Member)
  • Prof. Andreas Krall - Technische Universität Wien, Austria (External Member)
  • Prof. Petr Tůma - Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic (External Member)