Graph algorithms are often memory bound. When you visit a node, there is no reason to believe that its neighbours are located nearby in memory. In an earlier post, I showed how we could accelerate memory-bound graph algorithms by using software prefetches. We were able to... Read more

Emojis are funny characters that are becoming increasingly popular. However, they are probably not as simple as you might thing when you are a programmer. For a basis of comparison, let me try to use them in Python 3. I define a string that includes emojis,... Read more

I often hear people referring to SQL engines running against HDFS or object storage as MPP. Strictly speaking this is incorrect. Let me first explain what an MPP database is and then explain why engines such as Presto etc. should not be called an MPP engine.... Read more

Introduction Web-based surveys offer a quick and effective way to collect data. Several companies sell software-as-a-service which makes the construction of surveys quite easy using only a web browser. At the University of Tennessee, we currently have a system-wide site license for Qualtrics. Initial discussions suggested... Read more

JSON has become the de facto standard exchange format on the web today. A JSON document is quite simple and is akin to a simplified form of JavaScript: { "Image": { "Width": 800, "Height": 600, "Animated" : false, "IDs": } } These... Read more

I said something about Perl 6 the other day, and someone replied asking whether anyone actually uses Perl 6. My first thought was I bet more people use Perl 6 than Haskell, and it’s well known that people use Haskell. I looked at the TIOBE Index to see... Read more