Data-Intensive Distributed Systems Laboratory
Understanding
the Java Memory Model
James Riely
Associate Professor
School of Computing
College of Computing and Digital Media
DePaul University
Stuart Building 204
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
2:00PM-3:00PM
Slides
Abstract: Java's memory model is more complex than you might think. I will give a brief introduction to weak memory models and discuss Java's model in some detail. I will note some of the difficulties in Java's model and describe an alternative semantics which is better behaved. The alternative semantics has been used to prove the soundness of program transformations and type systems.
Bio: James Riely studies programming language semantics, with applications to type systems and software security. He received a NSF CAREER award in 2004, and has since been PI or co-PI on several NSF grants. Professor Riely holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MS in Computer Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University. He joined DePaul University's Foundations of Programming Languages group in 1999. Prior to that, he held postdoc positions at North Carolina State University and the University of Sussex and engineer positions at IBM and E-Systems (now Raytheon).