Overview

Extreme Datamining
LoadBalacing, Clustering, search engines
Extreme Programming, Agile Methods
ERP
Ruby
Smalltalk
Parallel programming
.Net
Lisp
C/C++/Objective-C
Editors
OO-Bench
Famous and not so famous programming languages quotes
History of Unix

Extreme Datamining

Additional papers on the homepage of Valerie Chavez-Demoulin.

Extreme Datamining
In this paper aspects of the recent Extreme Value Theory methodology are discussed. Particular emphasis is made to its application; a unique toolkit is provided with which to describe, understand and predict the non-standard fluctuations as discovered in real-life Internet-sourced log data.

A statistical analysis of the shareprice of the SAIR group (1996- 2001) from a risk manager's point of view. (Chavez-Demoulin, V., Embrechts, P., Roehrl, A.)
In Derivatives Use, Trading & Regulation 2/2002.

Over the recent years, Extreme Value Theory (EVT) has been used in order to statistically analyse financial data showing clear non-normal behaviour. Several examples coming from market, credit and operational risk have been discussed. In the present paper we look at the particular case of Swissair and q uantify, using EVT, the extremal behaviour of the returns. For this, we go beyond the traditional EVT and introduce new methodology such as smoothing and more advanced maximum likelihood techniques.

Around the 15th of October 2001, a group of young people have a glass of Champagne at the piano bar of the Central Plaza Hotel of Zurich, but surprise the waiter doesn't accept the Swissair Qualiflyer MasterCard.
The once Swiss pride Swissair is grounded. The shares have lost nearly all their value ...

World Wide Web Robot for Extreme Datamining with Swiss-Tx Supercomputers(pdf only)
This paper discusses the software and hardware issues of designing a highly parallel robot for extreme datamining on the Internet. As a sample application, a World Wide Web server count experiment for Switzerland and Thailand is presented. Our platform of choice is the SwissTx, a supercomputer built from commodity components that runs NT and COMPAQ Tru64 Unix. Hardware and software of this machine are discussed and benchmark results presented. Using statistical modelling for optimizing the search process, the inevitable bandwidth problem is reduced to some extent to a computation problem. We suggest that our approach to Web robots is a robust bet for a multitude of future Internet applications which might lead to a large-scale and cost-efficient usage of Web nnen, verweisen wir frobots.

MySQL Version 4 Einfuehrung (German, pdf only)
Introduction article (published in Linux-Enterprise 2/2002) featuring MySQL 4 and some benchmarks against other databases. Yes, MySQL is fast!

Unter Verdacht: Datamining mit R
(published in Linux-Enterprise 3/2002)
Im ersten Teil beschreiben wir R, eine (Statistik)- Programmiersprache, die auf S basiert. Dann geben wir eine kurze Einfuehrung in Datamining und zeigen an praktischen Beispielen, wieso R dabei sehr viel Zeit sparen kann. Da wir die mathematischen und statistischen Hintergruende hier nicht eingehend erklaeren koennen, verweisen wir fuer die Grundlagen auf die einschlaegige Fachliteratur. Unser Ziel ist, dem Leser eine Vorstellung von Datamining zu vermitteln.

LoadBalacing, Clustering, search engines

The WEB archives: A time-machine in your pocket!
Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the authors discuss both technical issues of creating archives of the World Wide Web (as suggested at www.archive.org), and the possible socio-political relevance of such archives in the future. As the Internet becomes the Ever- and Everywherenet, the Web archives may become a memory of mankind, a sort of time-machine to go back into the past. The authors present the hardware and software concepts, and an initial analysis, of a highly scalable and extendable approach to archive a fully queryable copy of the ever-changing Web.

Tuning Apache und was danach & Speed comparison with thttpd (Linux Enterprise 11/2001)
This article is worth looking at even if you do not speak German, as the graphics will tell you that thttpd offers serious speed. Towards the end we think a bit about load-balancing using mod_backhand, Eddie and LVS.

Herzklopfen - Hochverfügbare Webserver pc!linux (1/2002)
Wir benützen das Linux-HA Heartbeat [heartbeat] Paket, um aus mehreren eigenständigen Linux-PCs einen hochverfügbaren Linux-Cluster zu machen, in dem sich die Heartbeat-Maschinen gegenseitig beobachten. Bei Versagen eines Hosts wird mittels IP-Übernahme der ausgefallene Rechner sofort durch eine Hot-Standby Maschine ersetzt. In seiner einfachsten Form funktioniert Heartbeat in 2-Node Clustern und unterstützt mehrere Interfaces je Node. Die Reaktionszeit im Sekundenbereich wird allerdings durch eine ziemlich aufwändige Installation und Konfiguration erkauft.

Extreme Programming, Agile Methods

Extremes Programmieren
Introduction talk in German.

Absolut extrem (Linux Enterprise 10/2001)
Extreme Programming und Open Source Entwicklung.

Java Testing Frameworks.
This is part of an opensource book about Tomcat, hosted on sourceforge.net. The book is not yet finished.

On productivity (pdf)
Some blurbs from our book: "produktiver programmieren". Presented at the wjax in Munich, November 2002.

On Test-Driven-Development with Java (pdf)
Presented at the wjax in Munich, November 2002.

towards better ERP: Project ZUP

Articles in Russian only so far. More to follow in German and English.

Ruby

Programmieren mit Ruby (Our book! in German)
Authors: Armin Roehrl, Stefan Schmiedl and Clemens Wyss with guest chapters by Clemens Hintze and Michael Neumann.

Ruby Introduction article (German)
published in Linux-enterprise 10/2001.

Slides (English, Russian and French version) on our new love, Ruby. A programming language from Japan.
We used them at a talk in Barnaul (Siberia).

Ruby Tk FAQ Some problems I solved. Thanks to ruby-talk. This FAQ only started on 10/11/2001, but will grow steadily.

Ruby versus Smalltalk versus Objective-C versus C++ versus Java versus Python versus CLOS
A table comparing the OO-nature of these languages.

Ruby FAQ
the ultimate Ruby FAQ. Thx to Dave Thomas who setup the fatotum.

Using YAML and YAML.rb to keep track
Usually I remember things long enough to know that I have forgotten something. So I tend to have lots of notes cluttering up my desk and getting lost in the whirlwind caused by three children. Last weekend I had to do some changes in a database application I wrote some time ago, and decided to drop the paper in favor of something electronic, which is better at staying on my desktop.

Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know
Very useful summary by William Djaja Tjokroaminata.

Smalltalk

Einfuehrung in GNU Smalltalk (LE Artikel: Einfach bizarr!)
Authors: Armin Roehrl, Stefan Schmiedl mit einem Inverview mit Paolo Bonzini dem Maintainer von GNU Smalltalk.

.Net

Vergleich: .Net vs J2EE
Der Vortrag wurde am 15.5.2002 bei Object Masters fuer ASQF gehalten.

Pragmatischer .Net Überblick
Vortrag vom 27.9.2002 bei der Software Ring eG in Erlangen.
Kurzer no-hype Überblick über dotNet.

Ich habe Tests, also kann ich!
Kurzer Artikel zum Testing-Framework NUnit.

Lisp

Lisp Einführung
Dieser Artikel von Armin Röhrl und Stefan Schmiedl wurde in der Linux-Enterprise publiziert. Wir danken Nadja Rosmann für die online Version.

Die Programmiersprache Lisp hat die letzten 40 Jahre dynamisch gemeistert und darf als ausgereift bezeichnet werden. Lisp-Code kann sowohl interpretiert als auch kompiliert werden, was neben einer bequemen, inkrementellen Entwicklung auch eine vernünftige Ausführungsgeschwindigkeit ermöglicht. Lisp ist sehr viel weiter verbreitet als man denkt: Vom Finanzbereich bis zum Telekommunikationsanbieter findet man Erfolgsstorys von Lisp. Die bekannteste dürfte wohl der Artikel des Lisp-Gurus Paul Graham sein, der seinen (in Lisp programmierten) eCommerce Store Viaweb für $50 Millionen an Yahoo verkaufen konnte.

C/C++/Objective-C

An introduction to Objective-C for programmers familiar with C++ or any other OOP language.
It is a surprising fact that anyone studying GNUstep or the Cocoa Framework will notice they are nearly identical to the NEXTSTEP APIs that were defined ten years ago. A decade is an eternity in the software industry. If the framework (and its programming language--Objective C) came through untouched these past ten years, there must be something special about it. And Objective-C has done more than survive; some famous games including Quake and NuclearStrike were developed using Objective-C.

vi/vim

Der Editor vi
Dieser Artikel von Armin Röhrl und Stefan Schmiedl wurde in der Linux-Enterprise publiziert. Wir danken Nadja Rosmann für die online Version.

vi ist ein visual interface zum Zeileneditor ex (wie ed) und wurde von Bill Joy zu einer Zeit entworfen, in der man noch mit Terminals und 300 Baud Verbindungsraten kämpfte. Der Editor wurde so programmiert, dass man editieren und sich produktiv fühlen konnte, auch wenn der Bildschirmaufbau sehr träge war. Die Arbeit an vi begann mit dem Code von em (editing for mortals) von George Coulouris am University College in London. Bill meinte jedoch, dass editing einfacher und produktiver sein sollte und im Sommer `76 enstand in drei Monaten vi. Stoff von gestern? Von wegen, macht mal ein telnet/ssh mit eurem Handy und ihr werdet diese Eigenschaften schätzen lernen.

Parallel programming

Im Gleichschritt: Einfuehrung in paralleles Programmieren unter Linux mit MPI und BSP (in German)
published in Linux-enterprise 11/2001.

OO-Bench

OO-Bench
Sven C. Koehler has written some rather interesting OO-Benchmarks. The idea is to compare the performance of several OO languages like Java, C++, Objective-C, Smalltalk, Lisp, .. for real-life algorithms. Test out your latest compilers and interpreters or add tests in another yet unsupported language to make this as compelling for OO fanatics as the now stopped language shoot out site.
Update, 05/11/05: revived site.

Famous and not so famous programming languages quotes

Quotes on programming languages.
Heavy focus on Ruby.

History of Unix

A small graph generated with dotty.