Java Grande Two Thousand

There were some very interesting papers at this year's conference. Some of them focused on the implementation of various "special needs" JVMs. One, a distributed JVM, was designed to run java programs over a cluster transparently. A check-pointing JVM was described as well.

JimWaldo? gave the closing address. He pointed out that part of making systems more adaptable over a network is the ability to evolve protocol all the way down. JiniTechnology works this way. Protocol is a private matter between services. If I want to use your service, you hand me a proxy. What we do from that point on is our own business. He mentioned something called GildersLaw? as well: "bandwidth doubles every 12 mo." Interesting implication when you compare it to MooresLaw (18 mo.). It could generally become be faster to move bits around than to compute with them.

-- MichaelFeathers