With the always increasing needs for more responsive and better performing application, modern applications these mostly adopt concurrent computing model. In this model, a task is divided or split into multiple parts and then passed to a number of processing workers that will work on each part and then coordinate to help build the whole solution to the problem. Another case is when a stack of tasks or problems is forwarded to a number of processing workers having identical processing routine so that stack can be emptied faster. The application which applies the concurrent computing model is called concurrent application.

Two popular approaches have been widely used to address computation in a concurrent application: thread-based approach and event-based approach. Nowadays, event-based approach is a more likely to be found in the implementation of a concurrent application. Nonetheless, this does not mean that thread-based model never gains traction.

This article summarizes the paper with the same title, which offers thought-provoking argumentations on the merit of thread-based approach over event-based approach in developing a highly concurrent application. What’s interesting from the paper is not only does it provide conceptual and theoretical argumentation, it also shows some empirical results in the defense of the provoking statements.

You can download the presentation from the link below:

Why Events Are a Bad Idea (4200 downloads )

Enterprise solutions are often complex and heterogeneous. It is a perfect analogy of a system of systems. In this article, I provide a presentation delivered about Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). The presentation is based on a paper of the identical title, authored by M. T. Schmidt et al.

The presentation summarizes the key points in the paper. It highlights the definition and concept of the ESB and the common cases where it can be applied to a certain problem domain. Later it discusses several common mediation and usage patterns that can be chosen as the most proper strategy in resolving the system integration problem.

By nature, this presentation is targeted to computer science researchers. However, software or system engineers who want to get a better grasp of the ESB concept may also find the presentation and the original paper useful.

You can download the presentation from the link below:

The Enterprise Service Bus: Making Service-Oriented Architecture Real (6486 downloads )