WHITE PAPERS SPONSORED PROFILES JOB BOARD WEBINAR CENTER FREE SOFTWARE BZ RESEARCH ALMSHAREPOINT EVENTS CALENDAR PRINT/PDF EDITION PRINT/PDF BACK ISSUES

SUBSCRIBE TODAY CUSTOMER SERVICE EDITORIAL CALENDAR EDITORIAL BEATS GUEST VIEW GUIDE SD TIMES 100 GUIDE EVENTS CALENDAR ADVERTISING ARTICLE REPRINTS REPORT A BUG SITE MAP

ABOUT US BZ MEDIA NEWS BZ RESEARCH NEWS ON MONDAY SPTECHREPORT SPTECHWEB SPTECHCON IPHONE/IPAD DEVCON ANDROID DEVCON PRIVACY POLICY CONTACT US

HOME >> COLUMNS

Integration Watch: A smart programming project

By Andrew Binstock

February 1, 2010 — (Page 1 of 2)
One of the most common questions posted in the programming section of Reddit consists of asking for suggestions for interesting projects to develop. I know the feeling of this predicament—having the skills and needing a meaty problem to solve.

Many years ago, when I was young and the world was bright with possibilities, and programming—that extraordinary activity by which worlds entirely of my own imaginings are created—had the seductive appeal of magic, I read a set of articles in Byte magazine that transformed my view of what was possible. It was late 1985, and Byte was running a series of pieces written by Jonathan Amsterdam about how to create a virtual machine that implemented a virtual processor, followed by a companion set of articles on writing a simple compiler.

These articles arrived at a perfect time in my life. I had just mastered C (after having made a living for several years as a COBOL jockey) and I was looking for system-level software to write. Amsterdam’s VM, assembler and compiler were a perfect project, and by slowly implementing the system he described during the course of the following year, I learned a tremendous amount.

We have all experienced the surge when a program first runs correctly. But few explosions of beta-endorphins and adrenaline can match the one that pours over you when a program you wrote assembles to an executable that runs correctly on a VM you wrote. The multiple layers of joy and satisfaction lift you into a high that lasts for days. Due to time demands, I never went much past this point, but I saw the promised land and knew I could get there.

One limitation at this pre-Internet time was that Amsterdam’s articles, although long, were perforce too short to do justice to the topic. I had to extrapolate portions. Fortunately, I was friendly with a compiler writer who could point me in the right direction when I came to unexpected crossroads.

The value to me of the project cannot be overstated. By having worked at these various low levels, I had an uncommon feel for how compilers and operating systems enabled my code to work. I also had detailed knowledge of how linkers and libraries work. All this was very useful for writing software in C, and it retained much of its value when the world shifted to runtime environments such as the JVM and .NET.

Related Search Term(s): virtual machines

Pages 1 2

Share this link: http://sdt.bz/34101

Most Read Latest News Blog Resources

Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers

ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development

Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans

Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists

Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles

Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.

The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...

Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...

Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...

Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...

Technorati

Digg

Slashdot

Facebook

Friendfeed

Twitter

del.icio.us

VMware Introduces vFabric 5, an Integrated Application Platform for Virtual and Cloud Environments New Flexible Licensing, Deployment and Scaling Will Align Application Infrastructure with Cloud Computing Models

OpenMake adds virtual provisioning to CloudBuilder Version 4.7 eliminates the need to build multiple physical build machines, according to the company

Novell covers virtual and cloud deployment formats SUSE Appliance Toolkit 1.1 can support KVM and OVF, giving users more flexibility in deploying to the cloud

Add comment

Name*
Email*
Country

Comment

VMware Introduces vFabric 5, an Integrated Application Platform for Virtual and Cloud Environments
New Flexible Licensing, Deployment and Scaling Will Align Application Infrastructure with Cloud Computing Models Read More...

News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?

Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST