Brian Beckman

LINQ: reconciling object, relations and XML in the .NET framework

Many software applications today need to handle data from different data models; typically objects from the host programming language along with the relational and XML data models. The ROX impedance mismatch makes programs awkward to write and hard to maintain.The .NET Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) framework, proposed for the next release of the .NET framework, approaches this problem by defining a pattern of general-purpose standard query operators for traversal, filter, and projection. Based on this pattern, any .NET language can define special query comprehension syntax that is subsequently compiled into these standard operators (our code examples are in VB).Besides the general query operators, the LINQ framework also defines two domain specific APIs that work over XML (XLinq) and relational data (DLinq) respectively. The operators over XML use a lightweight and easy to use in-memory XML representation to provide XQuery-style expressiveness in the host programming language. The operators over relational data provide a simple OR mapping by leveraging remotable queries that are executed directly in the back-end relational store.

Why LINQ matters: cloud composability guaranteed

In this article we use LINQ (Language-integrated Query) as the guiding example of composability. LINQ is a specification of higher-order operators designed specifically to be composable. This specification is broadly applicable over anything that fits a loose definition of collection, from objects in memory to asynchronous data streams to resources distributed in the cloud. With such a design, developers build up complexity by chaining together transforms and filters in various orders and by nesting the chains--that is, by building expression trees of operators.

Volta: Developing Distributed Applications by Recompiling

Mainstream languages and tools are tailored for sequential, nondistributed applications, with support for distributed computing provided only in library APIs. Such programming environments force developers to make decisions early in the application life cycle about where the code should run, structuring the entire application around partitioning decisions. Performance measurement might reveal that the original partitioning was wrong, but redistributing the application is expensive because redistributing is restructuring. This article describes a new kind of tool suite that recompiles executables into a distributed form on the basis of declarative user annotations, inserting most of the necessary remoting and synchronization boilerplate code and facilitating post hoc instrumentation to drive quantitative redistribution. Because the tools operate on the intermediate language CIL (.NET common intermediate language), theyre compatible with a wide variety of .NET programming languages and eventual execution environments, even those that dont support CIL directly, such as JavaScript.

The story of the teapot in DHTML

It is easy to do amazing things, such as rendering the classic teapot in HTML and CSS.

GUMP: Grand Unified Meta-Protocols Recipes for Simple, Standards-Based Financial Cryptography

In this paper, we present a set of simple, all-parties-authenticated application protocol frameworks appropriate for a wide variety of financial applications running on the Internet. Collectively, we call these frameworks “GUMP”, for Grand Unified Meta-Protocols. The driving goal of the design is simplicity, so as to reduce dramatically the cost of engineering and deployment of application protocols. The simplicity of GUMP follows directly from a number of business-level premises, chief of which is that the client must digitally sign all transactions.