Faculty of Math, University
of Waterloo
presents ...
The 2004 J.W. Graham Medal Seminar
The Evolution of Software Efficiency:
From Saving Bytes to Saving You an Hour a Day
by
David Yach
Recipient of the 2004
J.W. Graham Medal in Computing & Innovation
Friday, June 18, 2004
1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Davis Centre, Room 1302
University of Waterloo
Presentation archive
Abstract
A generation ago, low powered microcomputers were in their
infancy, and access to larger computers was rare and expensive. In
that environment, it was important that programs were efficient in
terms of computer resources such as memory and processor utilization. Now,
20 years later, computers are ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive, and
the emphasis is on making people more efficient rather than making
effective use of computing resources.
This session will talk about the types of efficiencies that
occupied the minds of software developers in those earlier years, and
how and when those skills can still be applied today. Today's
emphasis on making people effective often leads to a completely
different way of looking at the type of software developed and the
tools and techniques used to create it. Although these two types of
efficiency appear to be completely opposing, they are often
complementary, and in fact are just two different viewpoints on the
same problem - optimizing overall system efficiency given a set of constraints.
David Yach
David Yach is Senior Vice President of Software at Research In
Motion Limited (RIM), the makers of the popular BlackBerry wireless
solution. David has overall responsibility for the full range of
software produced at RIM, which includes low level signal processing
on DSP's, handheld device real-time operating system, handheld-based
Java Virtual Machine, Java-based handheld applications, Windows NT
based corporate servers, all the way through to a fully redundant
distributed server network operating centre.
David received his B. Math from the University of Waterloo in 1983
and an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University in 1988. After completing
his undergraduate degree, David went to work for Watcom, an early UW
spinoff, developing language interpreters and compilers. His work
there included the design and development on Watcom C/C++, the Watcom
SQL database (more popularly known as SQL Anywhere), and the industry's
first complete ODBC implementation. David has been at RIM since 1998,
and in addition to his management responsibilities has continued to be
involved in the design (and sometimes the implementation) of the
end-to-end BlackBerry solution. He is the inventor or co-inventor on
numerous patents and patent applications.
David will receive the J.W. Graham Medal
in Computing and Innovation at convocation at the University of
Waterloo on June 19, 2004.
For more information, call:
519-888-4567 x 3638
Seminar Sponsorship
This seminar is sponsored by the Faculty
of Mathematics.
The infraNET Project is proud to provide
promotional assistance to this seminar presentation.
