ReLooper for DrJava?

I received a message from Danny Dig, the project lead of the ReLooper project. ReLooper is a refactoring tool that enables Java programmers to parallelize loops over arrays or vectors using Java’s upcoming ParallelArray framework. I assume Danny searched for all Java projects on SourceForge and contacted all “expert programmers” of those projects.

I know Corky received the message, too, and we both came to the conclusion that there
aren’t many parts suitable for this kind of optimization. It would be nice if indenting and “Find All” were the operations could be sped up.

With indenting, there is the problem that indenting one line depends on how the previous lines were indented. I’m not sure how this would be split up and parallelized. “Find all” is in theory easier to parallelize, but right now, it is tied very much into our single-document model. Changing this would be a good thing — it would allow us to cancel a “Find all” operation, too, — but it is a delicate task.

From what I understand, ReLooper transforms ASTs in Eclipse. It also seems like it needs an array to work on (at least automatically). I don’t know if it is able to cut through classes like ArrayList to the underlying array. The string representation in DefinitionsDocuments may be suitable, but then again the list structure in the reduced model is connected to it.

ReLooper evokes a similar response in me as Dave Patterson’s talk did: This may work in many programs that really crunch data, but I expect will break down when those algorithms need to be tied together and connected to a GUI.

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About Mathias

Software development engineer. Principal developer of DrJava. Recent Ph.D. graduate from the Department of Computer Science at Rice University.
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