| Contact Information |
Postal address:
School of Computer Science
University of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
N2L 3G1
E-mail:
stevem@uwaterloo.ca
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Office:
Davis Centre 2516
Phone:
(519) 888-4567 ext. 36242
Fax:
(519) 885-1208
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| Biographical Data |
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| Teaching |
| Current Courses |
Previous Courses |
| Fall 2008
CS 134 - Principles of Computer Science
Class: Tuesdays and Thursdays
10:00 - 11:20 AM - MC 2035
Office hours: Thursdays 1:30 - 3:00 PM or by appointment
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Winter 2007
CS 842 - Topics in Aspect-Oriented Programming
Fall 2005, Fall 2006
CS 133 - Developing Programming Principles
Winter 2005
CS 350 - Operating Systems
Fall 2004
CS 842 - Topics in the Java Language and Virtual Machine
Fall 2002, Fall 2003, Spring 2005, Spring 2007, Winter 2008
CS 454/654 - Distributed Systems
Spring 2003
CS 854 - Topics in Pattern-based Parallel Programming Systems
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| Research |
Current Research
I am currently a member of the
Programming Languages Group at the University
of Waterloo. However, different aspects of my work and interests overlap with
the Software Engineering and
Shoshin Distributed Systems groups.
That doesn't really say a lot, though. More specifically, I have interests in the
following areas:
- Testing and debugging of concurrent software Given the rise of multicore computers and the increase in concurrent software (particularly concurrent commercial software, like Adobe Photoshop and Norton Antivirus), testing and debugging will be essential for developers to produce high-quality software. My new research has focused on adding program analysis to improve model checking and other dynamic testing tools. Lately, we've begun to explore combining static and dynamic analysis methods to improve the testing process.
- Pattern-based programming systems and tools
Most of the work I've done in this area has been in the
context of parallel programming (see my previous research
below for details). Most work in this area has concentrated
on using patterns to write programs, through language support
or (in my case) code generation. Some potential research may
include the following:
- I am always interested in
finding new patterns (in different problem domains) that can be
incorporated into a pattern-based programming system.
- Something I would like to explore is how to use pattern
information in other tools for different phases of application
development. With pattern information, we know a lot about the
structure of a program and the kind of problem it is attempting
to solve. With this information, it should be possible to
augment profilers and visualization tools to provide feedback
tailored to the specific pattern rather than general feedback.
A compiler could use this information to identify the
computationally expensive parts of a program rather than having
to discover this itself. It can then dedicate more time to
optimizing this code.
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Improving the Java Virtual Machine
Since my work is now usually done in Java, I'm interested
in improving the virtual machine. This has two aspects. The
first aspect is to improve performance. One example topic in
this area is to reduce the locking overhead in object allocation,
which can dramatically impact the performance of a multi-threaded
program. The second aspect is to introduce features that make
it easier to write or maintain code, specifically object-oriented
frameworks. There are a number of possibilities, some including
the use of aspect-oriented programming, covariance, and
contravariance.
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Operating Systems and Distributed Systems
I haven't actually done much active research in these areas,
but I'm willing to consider topics in them.
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Previous Research
I was a member of the Software
Systems Group at the University of Alberta, working on pattern-based
parallel programming systems. The two projects I was
involved in were
Enterprise (during my M.Sc.)
and
CO2P3S (during my Ph.D.).
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| Publications |
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| Graduate Students |
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Current Students
- Jun Chen
Degree: PhD
Co-supervisor: Peter
Buhr
Topic: Testing and Debugging of Concurrent Software
- Steve Hanov
Degree: MMath
Topic: To be determined
- Nathan Zhang
Degree: MMath
Topic: To be determined
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Former Students
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| Software |
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CO2P3S:
CO2P3S
supports the rapid creation of parallel programs based
on design patterns, object-oriented frameworks, and
several layers of user-accessible abstractions.
At the first layer, you start writing a program by
specifying its structure
using a set of supported design pattern
templates. These templates are a parameterized
representation of an underlying design pattern. The
parameters allow you to customize the pattern structure
to tailor it to your specific application. Once you have
provided a full pattern description, the templates are
used to generate parallel object-oriented framework code
(multi-threaded Java code usually, though there's been work on
distributed memory patterns as well) that implements
the selected pattern structure. The framework code
encapsulates all of the communication, synchronization,
and concurrency management. You simply insert sequential
application code into the framework to complete a
program. Lower layers open up the implementation of the
frameworks so that you can remove performance bottlenecks
or implement pattern variations that are not addressed
by the pattern template parameters.
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MethodThread Class for Java:
This is a subclass of the Thread class that uses reflection to allow a thread to
execute any public method on an object rather than only the run() method of a
Runnable object. You can also get return values from the method and examine any
exceptions that were thrown. In addition, a class is provided that extends the
capabilities of the getMethod() method in the Class class to allow
subclasses in the parameter types argument (rather than requiring the types to
be an exact match). This class is also archived at (among other places)
CGIScriptsOnline.com,
ScriptSearch, and
FindAScript.com.
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| Goofiness |
Anagrams of
"Steve MacDonald"
- doves dent a clam,
- a vest-clad demon,
- demon laced vats,
- a celt adds venom,
- Tom addles Vance,
- Tom led advances,
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- Cam addles no vet,
- vend as cold meat,
- Dave's mental cod,
- a damn svelte cod,
- odd mental caves,
- Ed tends clam ova,
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and my favourite,
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