DocumentCode
802066
Title
VIM: taming software with hardware
Author
Halpern, Mark
Author_Institution
Berkeley Technol. Group., CA, USA
Volume
36
Issue
10
fYear
2003
Firstpage
21
Lastpage
25
Abstract
The computing world already agrees that software should never be written more than once. The goal of reusable software is widely shared, and developers have undertaken many projects to realize it. I applaud these efforts, and I have also attempted to contribute to them, but I now propose something more radical:my contention is that much software doesn´t need to be written even once - particularly software devoted to the task of memory management. I propose that we make unnecessary all the software dedicated to this task by giving programmers so much physical memory that they can work as if they had infinite memory-virtual infinite memory. This proposal rests on two main points. First, I estimate that nearly half the code produced is directly or indirectly dedicated to memory management. If this claim seems surprising, note that what I call memory management software is not just that portion explicitly dubbed memory management by its authors, but all the code that exists solely because memory is a critical resource. Second, I contend that we could replace all that software with physical memory, and we would profit greatly from doing so.
Keywords
virtual storage; memory management. software; programmers; reusable software; virtual infinite memory; Computer network management; Hardware; Memory management; Programming profession; Resource management; Software debugging; Software performance; Software reusability; Software tools; Technology management;
fLanguage
English
Journal_Title
Computer
Publisher
ieee
ISSN
0018-9162
Type
jour
DOI
10.1109/MC.2003.1236467
Filename
1236467
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