New, interactive tool helps Java developers write safe, parallel programs

Cheri Helregel, UPCRC Illinois, USA

ILLINOIS, USA: Computer science researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have released a new, interactive tool that simplifies writing safe parallel programs in Deterministic Parallel Java (DPJ) – a modern type and effect system based on the Java programming language.

Released as an eclipse plugin, DPJizer is the first interactive practical type and effect inference tool for a modern object-oriented effect system. Effect systems require extensive annotations from programmers, who should strive to keep annotations in sync with the code.

DPJizer saves programmers time by performing a whole-program analysis to infer some of the DPJ annotations automatically – many of which are more precise than those written manually. Programmers are also given the option to review and change annotations inferred by DPJizer.

According to Mohsen Vakilian of the Illinois research team, “DPJizer increases the productivity of programmers in writing safe and deterministic-by-default parallel programs for multicore systems,” adding that it makes it much easier to write and maintain DPJ programs.

DPJizer was developed at the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center at Illinois, with support and funding provided by Microsoft and Intel. DPJizer was developed by Mohsen Vakilian, Danny Dig, Robert L. Bocchino, Jr., Jeffrey Overbey, Vikram S. Adve, and Ralph E. Johnson.