IBM has published the following new technical articles, tutorials, and downloads on its DeveloperWorks and AlphaWorks websites. They cover a range of interesting (though not necessarily embedded) technical topics, primarily related to Linux and open source system development. Some require free registration. Enjoy . . . !

• Parallelize for Faster Linux Booting — Linux can serve as a client desktop or server right out of the box, a flexibility that slows its booting process. This article shows you options to increase the speed with which Linux boots, including two options for parallelizing the initialization process. It also shows you how to visualize graphically the performance of the boot process.
• Lightning Fast Programs with the SPU of Cell BE — Write optimal code for Cell BE processor's synergistic processing unit (SPU) and have your programs running lightning fast. This installment of the Cell BE processor series covers SIMD vector programming, branch elimination and hinting techniques, loop unrolling, and instruction scheduling. Part 1 gives an introduction to Linux on the PLAYSTATION 3, while Part 2 shows you how to program the SPEs of Sony PS3, and Part 3 dives further into the SPEs of Cell BE.
• XML and Java: Data binding in 1,000 varieties — Beyond using XML as a simple data format, data binding is one of the most popular uses of XML. It allows even beginner programmers to work with XML in a native programming language, and in many cases doesn't require any XML expertise at all. This article introduces some discussion topics to start you thinking about how you use XML and data binding with Java.
• Rails extensions are growing fast thanks to many — A new wave of extensions for Rails have been created thanks to an effective plug-in architecture that thousands of people have used to extend Rails. Many of these techniques are available to Java developers too, through aspect-oriented programming or bytecode enhancement. See how Ruby on Rails plug-ins work by looking at a popular plug-in called acts_as_state_machine. Its a great example of a good integration technique.
• Use PHP Profiler to Find and Hasten Plodding Code — If your PHP application is plodding, use a profiler to target and measure where time is being spent or memory is being used. You can target the statement, loop, function, class, or library that's most sluggish. Part 1 of this “Make PHP apps fast, faster, fastest” series demonstrates how you can accelerate your entire site by eliminating redundant work using XCache, a PHP opcode cache.
• The fine art of PHP V5.2 memory management — There are many improvements that have taken place in PHP V5.2, and one critical area is that of memory management. To understand the implications of these new features, this article delves into memory management functions in PHP5.2, tweaking the memory manager, limiting memory usage and consides why allocation overhead and speed are a big deal.
• Command-line PHP? Yes, you can! — Learn how to debug PHP code from the command line and examine the strengths of PHP as a shell scripting language unto itself. Give PHP a chance on the command-line interface, and you may find that it has become your new favorite shell-scripting tool. There's really nothing stopping you from using PHP as your Swiss Army knife for almost any given programming project.

 
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