The Art of Writing Efficient Programs

The Art of Writing Efficient Programs
Author: Fedor G. Pikus
Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2021-10-22
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1800202741

Become a better programmer with performance improvement techniques such as concurrency, lock-free programming, atomic operations, parallelism, and memory management Key Features Learn proven techniques from a heavyweight and recognized expert in C++ and high-performance computing Understand the limitations of modern CPUs and their performance impact Find out how you can avoid writing inefficient code and get the best optimizations from the compiler Learn the tradeoffs and costs of writing high-performance programs Book DescriptionThe great free lunch of "performance taking care of itself" is over. Until recently, programs got faster by themselves as CPUs were upgraded, but that doesn't happen anymore. The clock frequency of new processors has almost peaked, and while new architectures provide small improvements to existing programs, this only helps slightly. To write efficient software, you now have to know how to program by making good use of the available computing resources, and this book will teach you how to do that. The Art of Efficient Programming covers all the major aspects of writing efficient programs, such as using CPU resources and memory efficiently, avoiding unnecessary computations, measuring performance, and how to put concurrency and multithreading to good use. You'll also learn about compiler optimizations and how to use the programming language (C++) more efficiently. Finally, you'll understand how design decisions impact performance. By the end of this book, you'll not only have enough knowledge of processors and compilers to write efficient programs, but you'll also be able to understand which techniques to use and what to measure while improving performance. At its core, this book is about learning how to learn.What you will learn Discover how to use the hardware computing resources in your programs effectively Understand the relationship between memory order and memory barriers Familiarize yourself with the performance implications of different data structures and organizations Assess the performance impact of concurrent memory accessed and how to minimize it Discover when to use and when not to use lock-free programming techniques Explore different ways to improve the effectiveness of compiler optimizations Design APIs for concurrent data structures and high-performance data structures to avoid inefficiencies Who this book is for This book is for experienced developers and programmers who work on performance-critical projects and want to learn new techniques to improve the performance of their code. Programmers in algorithmic trading, gaming, bioinformatics, computational genomics, or computational fluid dynamics communities will get the most out of the examples in this book, but the techniques are fairly universal. Although this book uses the C++ language, the concepts demonstrated in the book can be easily transferred or applied to other compiled languages such as C, Java, Rust, Go, and more.

Efficient R Programming

Efficient R Programming
Author: Colin Gillespie
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2016-12-08
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1491950757

There are many excellent R resources for visualization, data science, and package development. Hundreds of scattered vignettes, web pages, and forums explain how to use R in particular domains. But little has been written on how to simply make R work effectively—until now. This hands-on book teaches novices and experienced R users how to write efficient R code. Drawing on years of experience teaching R courses, authors Colin Gillespie and Robin Lovelace provide practical advice on a range of topics—from optimizing the set-up of RStudio to leveraging C++—that make this book a useful addition to any R user’s bookshelf. Academics, business users, and programmers from a wide range of backgrounds stand to benefit from the guidance in Efficient R Programming. Get advice for setting up an R programming environment Explore general programming concepts and R coding techniques Understand the ingredients of an efficient R workflow Learn how to efficiently read and write data in R Dive into data carpentry—the vital skill for cleaning raw data Optimize your code with profiling, standard tricks, and other methods Determine your hardware capabilities for handling R computation Maximize the benefits of collaborative R programming Accelerate your transition from R hacker to R programmer

Programming Persistent Memory

Programming Persistent Memory
Author: Steve Scargall
Publisher: Apress
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2020-01-09
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1484249321

Beginning and experienced programmers will use this comprehensive guide to persistent memory programming. You will understand how persistent memory brings together several new software/hardware requirements, and offers great promise for better performance and faster application startup times—a huge leap forward in byte-addressable capacity compared with current DRAM offerings. This revolutionary new technology gives applications significant performance and capacity improvements over existing technologies. It requires a new way of thinking and developing, which makes this highly disruptive to the IT/computing industry. The full spectrum of industry sectors that will benefit from this technology include, but are not limited to, in-memory and traditional databases, AI, analytics, HPC, virtualization, and big data. Programming Persistent Memory describes the technology and why it is exciting the industry. It covers the operating system and hardware requirements as well as how to create development environments using emulated or real persistent memory hardware. The book explains fundamental concepts; provides an introduction to persistent memory programming APIs for C, C++, JavaScript, and other languages; discusses RMDA with persistent memory; reviews security features; and presents many examples. Source code and examples that you can run on your own systems are included. What You’ll Learn Understand what persistent memory is, what it does, and the value it brings to the industry Become familiar with the operating system and hardware requirements to use persistent memory Know the fundamentals of persistent memory programming: why it is different from current programming methods, and what developers need to keep in mind when programming for persistence Look at persistent memory application development by example using the Persistent Memory Development Kit (PMDK)Design and optimize data structures for persistent memoryStudy how real-world applications are modified to leverage persistent memoryUtilize the tools available for persistent memory programming, application performance profiling, and debugging Who This Book Is For C, C++, Java, and Python developers, but will also be useful to software, cloud, and hardware architects across a broad spectrum of sectors, including cloud service providers, independent software vendors, high performance compute, artificial intelligence, data analytics, big data, etc.

Memory as a Programming Concept in C and C++

Memory as a Programming Concept in C and C++
Author: František Franěk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2004
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9780521520430

The overwhelming majority of bugs and crashes in computer programming stem from problems of memory access, allocation, or deallocation. Such memory related errors are also notoriously difficult to debug. Yet the role that memory plays in C and C++ programming is a subject often overlooked in courses and in books because it requires specialised knowledge of operating systems, compilers, computer architecture in addition to a familiarity with the languages themselves. Most professional programmers learn entirely through experience of the trouble it causes. This 2004 book provides students and professional programmers with a concise yet comprehensive view of the role memory plays in all aspects of programming and program behaviour. Assuming only a basic familiarity with C or C++, the author describes the techniques, methods, and tools available to deal with the problems related to memory and its effective use.

Code Optimization

Code Optimization
Author: Kris Kaspersky
Publisher: A-List Publishing
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2003
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781931769242

A guide to optimizing programs on the PC and Unix platforms, this book covers the expediency of optimization and the methods to increase the speed of programs via optimization. Discussed are typical mistakes made by programmers that lessen the performance of the system along with easily implemented solutions. Detailed descriptions of the devices and mechanism of interaction of the computer components, effective ways of programming, and a technique for optimizing programs are provided. Programmers will also learn how to effectively implement programming methods in a high-level language that is usually done in assembler with particular attention given to the RAM subsystem. The working principles of the RAM and the way in which it is coupled with the processor as well as a description of programming methods that allows programmers to overclock the memory to reach maximum performance are included.

Advanced R

Advanced R
Author: Hadley Wickham
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 669
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1498759807

An Essential Reference for Intermediate and Advanced R Programmers Advanced R presents useful tools and techniques for attacking many types of R programming problems, helping you avoid mistakes and dead ends. With more than ten years of experience programming in R, the author illustrates the elegance, beauty, and flexibility at the heart of R. The book develops the necessary skills to produce quality code that can be used in a variety of circumstances. You will learn: The fundamentals of R, including standard data types and functions Functional programming as a useful framework for solving wide classes of problems The positives and negatives of metaprogramming How to write fast, memory-efficient code This book not only helps current R users become R programmers but also shows existing programmers what’s special about R. Intermediate R programmers can dive deeper into R and learn new strategies for solving diverse problems while programmers from other languages can learn the details of R and understand why R works the way it does.

Writing Efficient Programs

Writing Efficient Programs
Author: Jon Louis Bentley
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Total Pages: 220
Release: 1982
Genre: Computers
ISBN:

Classic on practical methods of optimizing programs: This book gives practical advice on improving the efficiency (optimizing) programs and the limits there of. While showing how to trade off speed for space or vice-versa, the author points out the limits that can be expected to gain. His list of techniques is a collection of practical approaches rather than theoretical possibilities. At 158 pages (not counting index) this book is eminently readable, accessable and useful. Clearly written and well organized this is a book to keep on your shelf for when a program needs improving. It is also a book to read before a program as a reminder not to make things complicated with optimization that aren't needed.

Structured Parallel Programming

Structured Parallel Programming
Author: Michael McCool
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0124159931

Programming is now parallel programming. Much as structured programming revolutionized traditional serial programming decades ago, a new kind of structured programming, based on patterns, is relevant to parallel programming today. Parallel computing experts and industry insiders Michael McCool, Arch Robison, and James Reinders describe how to design and implement maintainable and efficient parallel algorithms using a pattern-based approach. They present both theory and practice, and give detailed concrete examples using multiple programming models. Examples are primarily given using two of the most popular and cutting edge programming models for parallel programming: Threading Building Blocks, and Cilk Plus. These architecture-independent models enable easy integration into existing applications, preserve investments in existing code, and speed the development of parallel applications. Examples from realistic contexts illustrate patterns and themes in parallel algorithm design that are widely applicable regardless of implementation technology. The patterns-based approach offers structure and insight that developers can apply to a variety of parallel programming models Develops a composable, structured, scalable, and machine-independent approach to parallel computing Includes detailed examples in both Cilk Plus and the latest Threading Building Blocks, which support a wide variety of computers

Elements of Programming

Elements of Programming
Author: Alexander Stepanov
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2019-06-27
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0578222140

Elements of Programming provides a different understanding of programming than is presented elsewhere. Its major premise is that practical programming, like other areas of science and engineering, must be based on a solid mathematical foundation. The book shows that algorithms implemented in a real programming language, such as C++, can operate in the most general mathematical setting. For example, the fast exponentiation algorithm is defined to work with any associative operation. Using abstract algorithms leads to efficient, reliable, secure, and economical software.