Oracle seeks Java performance boost, joins HSA Foundation

[csbin]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2062880/oracle-seeks-java-performance-boost-joins-hsa-foundation.html

Oracle has joined the industry consortium HSA Foundation, which is developing standards to make it easier for programmers to take advantage of GPUs and other processor types for faster code execution.
The Heterogeneous System Architecture Foundation is developing a set of open-source programming tools that will make it easier for programmers to harness the joint power of CPUs, graphics processing units (GPUs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and digital signal processors for better system performance.
Oracle wants to bring those “heterogeneous compute” capabilities to Java developers, too.
“Our work with the HSA Foundation will help provide Java developers with the ability to quickly leverage GPU acceleration, and explore how the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), as well as the Java language and APIs, might be enhanced to allow applications to take advantage of heterogeneous compute,” said Nandini Ramani, vice president of development for Oracle’s Java Platform, in a statement. Oracle acquired the Java platform when it bought Sun Microsystems.

Background

The not-for-profit foundation was started last year by Advanced Micro Devices, Qualcomm, ARM Holdings, and other companies. AMD has collaborated with Oracle on an OpenJDK project called “Project Sumatra,” which will bring parallel acceleration to JVMs with Java 8, which will become available in March next year. Sumatra repurposes multi-core Java 8 APIs (application programming interfaces) called Stream or Lambda to enable processing on CPUs and GPUs, but it will need extra layers of code for parallel execution.
Ultimately, JVMs will get native support for parallel acceleration, which will reduce the need for extra layers of code. Native support for HSA’s specifications in JVMs is expected with Java 9 in 2015, and Oracle is working with the HSA Foundation to reduce the overlays needed for Java to tap into GPUs and other co-processors.
HSA has released some specifications that pool memory resources and lower the overhead required in dispatching jobs to hardware for execution. HSA also is looking to create industry-standard parallel programming tools on top of existing standards like OpenCL.
Other new members include networking firm Huawei and Linaro, which develops ARM-based software for Linux distributions. U.S. government labs Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have also joined the consortium.
Intel and Nvidia, which offer their own parallel programming tools, are not members of HSA Foundation.

 

[Homeles]

2015? That's a long way off.

Good to see that Java 8 will bring some goodies, and that AMD is working closely with developers to pull stuff like this off.

 

[zebrax2]

It's nice to see AMD being active to gain support for their product unlike what they used to do before

 

[ShintaiDK]

Isnt Java on the way out? The only single place we use Java today is the national login. But that will be Javascript next year, due to the endless disasterous security issues and platform issues with Java.

Java is also long gone from the company deployment packages.

 

[Gunbuster]

I fixed the headline: Oracle seeks to install more Ask.com toolbars, intentionally adds security flaws so they can push an update every other week.

 

[PliotronX]

I fixed the headline: Oracle seeks to install more Ask.com toolbars, intentionally adds security flaws so they can push an update every other week.

ROFL I had to clean up the scariest case of ransomware I've ever seen because this lady hadn't updated Java since 2011. If old enough, Java can be exploited with no user interaction. The updater interrupts whatever I'm doing just to check for updates with a UAC prompt. I hate Java as an enduser but it can do neat things, especially Javascript for websites.

 

[rtsurfer]

ROFL I had to clean up the scariest case of ransomware I've ever seen because this lady hadn't updated Java since 2011. If old enough, Java can be exploited with no user interaction. The updater interrupts whatever I'm doing just to check for updates with a UAC prompt. I hate Java as an enduser but it can do neat things, especially Javascript for websites.

Java != Java Script.

They are completely different languages..

 

[PliotronX]

Java != Java Script.

They are completely different languages..

Gotcha, /me derp. Okay, Java just pisses me off then.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Java=Bad, Javascript=Good

 

[Nothingness]

Java=Bad, Javascript=Good

Why am I not surprised you think the contrary of what I think?

What makes you think JS is better than Java?

 

[rtsurfer]

What bothers me is that if Java is on the way out, why are colleges still teaching them as the default language to Computer Science Majors..

 

[beginner99]

Isnt Java on the way out? The only single place we use Java today is the national login. But that will be Javascript next year, due to the endless disasterous security issues and platform issues with Java.

Java is also long gone from the company deployment packages.

Not at all. Java is not on it's way out.

Yes, it's a no-go on client side, eg. Java-Applets. But in server-side it's stronger than ever especially in business apps. And a lot of that code may be server to server communication only.

However you never see this when accessing web sites.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Why am I not surprised you think the contrary of what I think?

What makes you think JS is better than Java?

Really? Java have all year been nothing but one disaster after the other.

 

[PliotronX]

Oh and you can skip the whole ask.com toolbar crap and make it more secure using the offline installer with the magic command jre<build>.exe /s WEB_JAVA_SECURITY_LEVEL=V. I typically repackage the offline installer with this command for mass deployment on laymans' systems.

 

[podspi]

Really? Java have all year been nothing but one disaster after the other.

Unless you are referring to something I'm not aware of, those were all client-side exploits. And, like Flash, Java on the client-side is on the way out.

But Java in general is used quite a bit in business. You're just not going to be programming applets anymore, we have javascript and HTML5 for that.

 

[cytg111]

Cause Java is NOT on its way out..

But put it a sandbox in a browser and fail is going to happen, call it java, javafx, c#, silverlight, flash, activex and yes javascript. Javascript is the bastard child here, if anything should go quietly into the dark it should be js.

 

[Nothingness]

Really? Java have all year been nothing but one disaster after the other.

Thatwas not my point, I dislike Java, but IMHO JS is much worse. So I'd really like to know why you find it better.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Thatwas not my point, I dislike Java, but IMHO JS is much worse. So I'd really like to know why you find it better.

Since we currently use Java that requires the Java download from Oracle for the national login. That includes netbanking and so on. How do you think it works on for example smartphones or tablets? Excluding the x86 windows tablets.

Not to mention Oracle, as already told, fills the java download with malware. Like it wasnt insecure enough by itself. And Oracles inability and unwillingness to fix exploits in java.

The Java download is so bad, its been at the prime ministers office to get rid of it asap.

 

[Nothingness]

Since we currently use Java that requires the Java download from Oracle for the national login. That includes netbanking and so on. How do you think it works on for example smartphones or tablets? Excluding the x86 windows tablets.

Not to mention Oracle, as already told, fills the java download with malware. Like it wasnt insecure enough by itself.

The Java download is so bad, its been at the prime ministers office to get rid of it asap.

So that's unrelated to the language itself? Which was what I had in mind

 

[ShintaiDK]

So that's unrelated to the language itself? Which was what I had in mind

Is that a surprise for you? You replied to my post when I said Java was bad and Javascript was good.

 

[Ajay]

Java for enterprise servers seems to still be doing well, whereas it seems to be in sharp decline on the desktop. So, why all this fuss for an APU? Some of the examples given in APU13 are stuff you'd likely do on a server. So what's AMD getting on about?

 

[podspi]

Java for enterprise servers seems to still be doing well, whereas it seems to be in sharp decline on the desktop. So, why all this fuss for an APU? Some of the examples given in APU13 are stuff you'd likely do on a server. So what's AMD getting on about?

Probably Opteron APUs. If it actually works it could be great for them. I'm just not certain it will work.

 

[Nothingness]

Is that a surprise for you? You replied to my post when I said Java was bad and Javascript was good.

Obviously it's a surprise, because when you say "Java is bad and Javascript is good" you talk about two languages, not about their implementation. Do you see the difference?

 

[Homeles]

Oh and you can skip the whole ask.com toolbar crap and make it more secure using the offline installer with the magic command jre<build>.exe /s WEB_JAVA_SECURITY_LEVEL=V. I typically repackage the offline installer with this command for mass deployment on laymans' systems.

Simpler way to skip the toolbar crap: download it from ninite.com. That also goes for a lot of other frequently used freeware.

 

[PliotronX]

Simpler way to skip the toolbar crap: download it from ninite.com. That also goes for a lot of other frequently used freeware.

I <3 ninite but it installs x64 jre along with the x86. Two runtimes to keep updated and doubles security holes. There really isn't a reason to install x64 even on a 64-bit as the plugins with x86 work with all browsers and there isn't a need to address more than 4gigs of memory (I shudder to think of the clusterfcuk java app would!).

Come to think of it that's how this lady's computer was hit by cryptolocker her jre x86 was 6.0u12 and x64 7.0u25.