Neil C Smith

A few thoughts on the trials and tribulations of building a just-in-time programming system in Java. But wait, isn’t it a JIT-compiled language anyway? Job done … next talk … no, wait...

Java may have JIT-compiled bytecode, and that makes it a useful tool for this endeavour, but that doesn’t get us from source code to running code. And anyway, there’s far more to a useful just-in-time programming system than just getting code running.

PraxisLIVE is a hybrid-visual IDE for live programming. At its heart is PraxisCORE, a forest-of-actors runtime for real-time programming, bringing aspects of Erlang, SmallTalk and Extempore into the Java world. We’ll explore the inter-relationship of liveness and feedback between runtimes and tools … possibly with the help of a few bleepy noises!

Please note that this replaces a talk on "TerosHDL - Open Source IDE for FPGA Developers" by Carlos Alberto.

PraxisLIVE is an open-source hybrid-visual IDE for live programming, built on top of the NetBeans platform. While the IDE is primarily aimed at creative coders, its underlying forest-of-actors runtime supports real-time coding Java in general. PraxisCORE brings aspects of Erlang, Smalltalk and Extempore into the Java world, providing a powerful platform for media processing, data visualisation, sensors, robotics, IoT, and lots more! We will explore some of the trials and tribulations of designing a just-in-time programming system in Java, including actors, classloaders and reactive dataflows, with the aid of some hypnotic visuals and bleepy sounds.