How the Java-Optimized Vega Chip Happened

An airhacks.fm conversation with Gerald Venzl (@GeraldVenzl) about: from a 386 computer with SimCity to Oracle's database evangelist, early interest in computer hardware and software, apprenticeship as a programmer in Austria, work experience with Oracle database and PLSQL, Steven Feuerstein, PLSQL expert, career moves to New York, London, and San Francisco, role as product manager and team leader at Oracle, efforts to attract developers to Oracle technologies, involvement in Oracle ACE Program, work on docker files for Oracle Database, challenges with ARM port for Mac, popular JavaOne talk on optimizing Java code for database performance, discussion of Oracle's various database technologies including NoSQL and TimesTen, importance of educating developers on database best practices, evolution of database performance techniques, future topics for discussion including Oracle architecture, Java integration, and business logic in databases, Gerald's team of evangelists across Europe, ways to contact Gerald and his team for speaking engagements or information Gerald Venzl on twitter: @GeraldVenzl

An airhacks.fm conversation with Nicolai Parlog (@nipafx) about: Java 22 and 23 new features overview, including unnamed variables with underscore, multi-source file launching, G1 region pinning, Foreign Function & Memory API finalization, Markdown Javadoc support, ZGC generational collector by default, discussion on Java installation and beginner-friendliness, debate on proper use of LTS terminology for Java releases, potential for Java in AI/ML space with new vector APIs and native performance, comparison of Java to python for AI workloads, challenges and opportunities for Java adoption in data science and machine learning domains, importance of specialized AI models vs general models for enterprise use cases, trade-offs between developer experience and operational efficiency for different languages and runtimes, potential future directions for Java in high-performance computing and AI acceleration, previously, Nicolai appeared on "#300 Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) vs. Data-Oriented Programming (DOP) in Java" Nicolai Parlog on twitter: @nipafx

An airhacks.fm conversation with Georgios Andrianakis (@geoand86) about: early experiences with computers and programming, transition from Pascal and C to Java in university, early career working with WebLogic and EJB, move to Spring development, joining Red Hat and discovering quarkus, developing Spring compatibility layer for Quarkus, Vodafone Greece case study showing benefits of migrating from Spring to Quarkus, current work on RESTEasy Reactive and langchain4j, exploration of future AI integration in Java with projects like Llama3.java, comparison of Spring, Quarkus, and Micronaut, discussion on the evolution of Spring and its perceived bloat, potential for Quarkus and LangChain4j to revolutionize enterprise AI integration, importance of pure Java solutions for AI inference and integration with existing enterprise applications Georgios Andrianakis on twitter: @geoand86

An airhacks.fm conversation with Jonathan Schneider (@jon_k_schneider) about: Spinnaker's role in continuous delivery and multi-cloud deployments, multi-cloud architectures, Micrometer's origin and design as a vendor-neutral metrics abstraction library, comparison of micrometer to other metrics solutions like opentelemetry and MicroProfile Metrics, exploration of Micrometer's architecture including registries and meter types, debate on static vs dependency-injected registries, explanation of distribution summaries and their use cases, consideration of unit testing metrics, examination of Micrometer's support for multiple monitoring systems simultaneously, discussion of meter filters for customizing metric output, reflection on the trade-offs between language support and monitoring system support in metrics libraries, insights into the separation of application and runtime metrics, Jonathan's experience developing Micrometer at Netflix and Pivotal, current usage of Micrometer and prometheus in Modern's multi-tenant SaaS architecture, comparison of serverless and EC2-based deployments for different use cases, OpenRewrite's growing popularity in Europe Jonathan Schneider on twitter: @jon_k_schneider

An airhacks.fm conversation with Gil Tene (@giltene) about: discussion of Azul Systems' Vega chip, a custom-designed processor optimized for Java workloads, Vega's architecture and features including multiple generations (Vega 1, 2, and 3), high core count (up to 54 cores per chip), custom instruction set, hardware-managed register windows, type-aware pointers for efficient method calls, fully symmetric multiprocessing with up to 16 chips (864 cores total), memory striping across controllers for even distribution, Hardware Transactional Memory support for concurrent Java operations, custom coherency and memory ordering instructions, comparison with contemporary processors from Intel and Sun, challenges in chip design and manufacturing, impact on Java performance and concurrency, evolution of the technology and its influence on modern processor designs, Gil Tene's role in developing the Vega chip and related software technologies at Azul Systems, Gil's blog: Stuff Gil Says Gil Tene on twitter: @giltene

An airhacks.fm conversation with Cliff Click (@cliff_click) about: Cliff Click's early computer experiences with xerox mainframe and punch cards, learning fortran at a young age, programming on TRS-80 and other early microcomputers, developing a passion for compilers and optimization, pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at Rice University, inventing the sea of nodes compiler architecture, working at motorola and discovering Intel's benchmark cheating, joining Sun Microsystems to develop the Java HotSpot compiler, presenting groundbreaking Java performance improvements at JavaOne 2002, frustrations with Sun's management and development processes, moving to Azul Systems for custom Java hardware development, reflections on compiler research, the challenges of being a highly productive programmer in a team environment, analyzing bug rates and productivity metrics, the importance of writing new code for feature development, enjoying Java's "write once, run anywhere" philosophy, current involvement in compiler communities on Discord and Cliff Click on YouTube Cliff Click on twitter: @cliff_click

An airhacks.fm conversation with Christian Stein (@sormuras) about: early computing experiences with C64, learning Basic and Pascal, transition to Java programming, developing a commercial Java game using lwjgl, involvement with JUnit testing framework as a committer, work on openJDK and Java tools at Oracle, discussion about Java build tools and dependency management, vision for a simpler Java build process using only JDK tools, multi-file source code feature in Java 22, pluggable dependency resolution, tool provider interface introduced in Java 9, potential for a new ecosystem of Java tools, Bach - Java Shell Builder, Adam's YouTube channel with Java programming shorts, misconceptions about Java's verbosity, future plans for Java build tools Christian Stein on twitter: @sormuras

An airhacks.fm conversation with Bruce Hopkins about: transition from Basic to Java, work on Bluetooth technology and writing a book on Bluetooth for Java, involvement with Sun Microsystems and Java ME, becoming a Java Champion, shift to AI and natural language processing research, development of speech recognition and hands-free web navigation systems using pure Java, use of Hugging Face libraries for NLP in 2016, writing for Linux Magazine about mesh VPNs, discovery and exploration of ChatGPT, writing a book on integrating ChatGPT with Java, shared experiences and parallel paths in Java development, discussion about Sun Microsystems vs Oracle's approach to Java, mention of various Java-related technologies like JXTA, Sphinx, FreeTTS, and Dalvik, brief explanation of mesh VPNs and Tailscale, plans for a future podcast episode focused on Bruce's JavaChatGPT book

An airhacks.fm conversation with Paul Sandoz (@paulsandoz) about: Project Valhalla's origins and goals, value types vs reference types, heap and stack flattening optimizations, Value objects and data transfer objects, nullability constraints, enums and values, implicit constructability, potential performance gains, challenges in retrofitting value types into Java, implications for numeric types and operator overloading, connections to Vector API and Project Panama, impact on JVM languages like Scala, timeline and development process for Project Valhalla, potential for improving Java's competitiveness in areas like machine learning, challenges in growing the Java language in an extensible way, considerations around backwards compatibility, Paul Sandoz's role in the project and future directions for Java Paul Sandoz on twitter: @paulsandoz

An airhacks.fm conversation with Jonathan Schneider (@jon_k_schneider) about: OpenRewrite as an open-source tool for code transformation using lossless semantic trees (LSTs), recipes as programs that manipulate the LST, YAML configuration for defining recipes, dry run and in-place code modification options, separation of open-source and commercial aspects of the project, Moderne as a SaaS platform for large-scale code analysis and transformation, visualization features in Moderne including dependency usage violin charts, impact analysis capabilities, organizational structure in Moderne for managing large codebases, integration of OpenRewrite in various IDEs and tools including Amazon Q Code Transformer, IntelliJ IDEA, and Visual Studio Code, the business model of open-source and commercial offerings, the genesis of OpenRewrite from Gradle Lint in 2015-2016, recent momentum in adoption, Jonathan's background with micrometer project, discussion about IDEs including Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ IDEA, potential future topics including Micrometer and Spinnaker Jonathan Schneider on twitter: @jon_k_schneider