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The article provides an answer to a question concerning JavaScript's type coercion in timeout functions, highlighting the API's unexpected and potentially problematic behavior of silently converting non-numeric inputs into numbers, and advocates for stricter error handling and cautious programming practices to mitigate such issues.

The article provides an answer to a question concerning code porting in open source projects and API name changes.

This article focuses on Application-centric, edge-cloud, collaborative intelligence, also referred to as Application-centric ECCI or ACE, platforms which would allow for the development and deployment of intelligent applications. Topics include five principles for design of these platforms which include the integrative nature of these platforms, the requirement for both collaborative and autonomous ability of applications in both edge and cloud computing, component orchestration, in-app control, and application workload support flexibility. A discussion of each individual component of these ACE platforms is also included.

The author reflects on the interoperability of machine learning (ML) and large language model (LLM) systems, considering the potential for specialized APIs, federated learning, and cooperative interaction among ML systems, suggesting the need for semantic and syntactic exchange standards to ensure precision in information exchange. They invite input from more qualified individuals to further develop these ideas.

A humorous article discusses various best practices for the use of application programming interfaces (API) by business enterprises and how they can negatively impact customer relations and public relations, particularly by not making APIs apparent on search engines.

The article discusses the India Stack project of digitizing India, which consists of numerous application programming interfaces (APIs), with a particular focus on the Indian government's Aadhaar program to develop identification (ID) cards for Indians. An overview of the Aadhaar program's use of biometric authentication to ID people, including privacy concerns with this, is provided. The development of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for electronic payment is discussed.

The article discusses the shared centralized service Canary Analysis Service (CAS) from the firm Google Inc. that offers automatic analysis of metrics during production changes. Topics include the application program interface (API) associated with CAS, the remote procedure calls (RPCs) used by the CAS API, and the autoconfiguration of CAS that uses behavior learning.

The article discusses the influence of low-latency I/O devices on efforts to mitigate microsecond-scale event latencies within computer systems. Topics include processor designers' development of techniques such as prefetching, out-of-order execution, and branch prediction to facilitate a deep memory hierarchy that works at nanosecond scale by providing a simple synchronous programming interface to memory systems, and computer scientists' creation of software-based techniques, such as operating system context switching, to handle millisecond-scale events.

The article discusses the American technology company Google's legal briefs in a U.S. Supreme Court petition to review lower courts' judgments in lawsuits concerning application program interfaces (APIs) copyright law. An overview of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's (CAFC's) ruling on copyright protection for the use of Java API by Google is provided.

The article discusses benefits of microservices in relation to distributed systems that use APIs (application program interfaces). Topics include the notion of permissionless innovation as opposed to gatekeepers blocking integration, the needs to enable failure using microservices, and the relation of service-level agreements (SLAs) to trust.

The article presents suggestions for improving the usability standards of application programming interfaces (APIs). The multivariate aspects of API security and evaluation are examined, the alleged impacts of poor usability design of APIs on computer programmers are discussed, and information is offered on the impact of agile software development on APIs.

The author discusses his thoughts about the dominance of high technology firms Apple and Google in the smartphone industry, particularly the control that the companies have over smartphone operating software. He examines the introduction of the Exposure Notification contact tracing framework during the COVID-19 pandemic and the control exercised by Apple and Google, the importance of application programming interfaces (APIs), and issues of privacy and privacy protocols.

The article explains the functions and operations of databases so as to aid those managing data storage in selecting the most appropriate one. It outlines the three types of data models in databases, relational, key-value, and hierarchical; different types of application programming interfaces (APIs); and the steps of a database transaction. It assesses different kinds of databases with respect to criteria including speed and data protection. Topics include the limitations of hard disks versus solid-state drives (SSDs), the benefits of SQL versus non-SQL databases, the role of page caches, and indexing.

The article discusses building a distributed system. Discussion centers on a sample Web service that resizes an image. Topics covered include constructing the architecture for a distributed system, breaking a distributed system down into its constituent services, details for the associated application programming interface (API), using a distributed message queue to deliver images to transcoding servers, automating failovers to satisfy available service-level agreements, and the testing and validation of a distributed system.

The article discusses the construction and maintenance of application programming interfaces (APIs), focusing on the optimization of back-end systems for mobile applications as well as user interfaces. According to the article, the constraints of mobile devices include slower networks and processing power, screen size limitations, and cache content limits. Recommendations for developers include minimizing connections required to render Web pages, limiting image requests, prefetching data, minimizing domain name system lookups, and avoiding cookies.

The article focuses on asynchronous data stream querying using fluent application programming interface operators provided by the Reactive Extension (Rx) library. It states that database technology corresponds to dimensions of variety, velocity, and volume and utilizes a cube diagram to graph the different database dimensions. It mentions that Rx coordinates and orchestrates event-based and asynchronous computations including short message service messages, social media status updates, and high-latency calls to Web services utilizing standard object-oriented programming languages. It talks about the creation of asynchronous data streams in the Java programming language and comments on the use of asynchronous and streaming services in web and mobile applications.

Deterministic execution offers many benefits for debugging, fault tolerance, and security. Current methods of executing parallel programs deterministically, however, often incur high costs, allow misbehaved software to defeat repeatability, and transform time-dependent races into input- or path-dependent races without eliminating them. We introduce a new parallel programming model addressing these issues, and use Determinator, a proof-of-concept OS, to demonstrate the model’s practicality. Determinator’s microkernel application programming interface (API) provides only “shared-nothing” address spaces and deterministic interprocess communication primitives to make execution of all unprivileged code—well-behaved or not—precisely repeatable. Atop this microkernel, Determinator’s user-level runtime offers a private workspace model for both thread-level and process-level parallel programming. This model avoids the introduction of read/write data races, and converts write/write races into reliably detected conflicts. Coarse-grained parallel benchmarks perform and scale comparably to nondeterministic systems, both on multicore PCs and across nodes in a distributed cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capsicum is a lightweight operating system (OS) capability and sandbox framework planned for inclusion in FreeBSD 9. Capsicum extends, rather than replaces, UNIX APIs, providing new kernel primitives (sandboxed capability mode and capabilities) and a userspace sandbox API. These tools support decomposition of monolithic UNIX applications into compartmentalized logical applications, an increasingly common goal that is supported poorly by existing OS access control primitives. We demonstrate our approach by adapting core FreeBSD utilities and Google’s Chromium Web browser to use Capsicum primitives, and compare the complexity and robustness of Capsicum with other sandboxing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on research into a practical context-monitoring system for use in context-aware applications for mobile devices. It states the MobiCon middleware framework would mediate personal sensor networks and context-aware applications while providing a runtime environment for applications and providing application programming interfaces (API). It comments that context-monitoring platforms need to provide application developers with intuitive, generic context-monitoring API which facilitate applications to delegate complex context-monitoring tasks to the system while dealing with application-specific logistics. It talks about how energy consumption is reduced by hierarchical sensor management that avoids continuous operation of high-power systems that drain energy.

The article focuses on the netmap framework input/output application programming interface. It states that netmap can move data traffic up to 40 times faster than existing operating systems and eliminates much unnecessary overhead. It mentions that previous operating systems such as Windows and Linux are influenced by design decisions from almost 30 years ago due to the scarcity of memory and hardware limitations in the network interface controller (NIC). It talks about how modern NICs are able to send or receive packets that are split into multiple memory buffers and use descriptors simpler than those used by the operating system. It comments on the effect latency has on performance and also talks about data structures used to support communication between applications and the kernel.

The article analyzes parallel computer programs which were developed using the Message Passing Interface (MPI) application programming interface (API). The article examines the importance of MPI in high-performance computing (HPC) and looks at methods of debugging applications. Other topics include dynamic verification, symbolic execution, and static analysis. The author examines the ISP Formal Verification Tool, the Graphical Explorer of Message passaging (GEM) tool, and the Distributed Analyzer of MPI (DAMPI).

The article discusses what the authors call a SLAM engine, software code that lets computer programmers set usage rules regarding state and check to see if clients are conforming to those rules. One application for the SLAM engine devised by the authors is a static driver verifier (SDV) that verifies whether device drivers used by the Windows operating system satisfy the usage rules of application program interfaces (APIs). The authors present an overview of their ten-year experience with SLAM and SDV, and describe how they extended SLAM to become an SDV product.

The author discusses reasons why the computer software firm Oracle could lose its appeal to a jury's May 2016 rejection of its claim that the technology company Google infringed on its copyrights by using 37 packages of its Java application program interface (API) to develop the Android platform for smartphones. Topics include the U.S. fair-use defense, distinctions between Oracle's Java language and the Java API declarations, and Oracle's development of the Java API for a different computing environment.

The authors reflect on challenges encountered by enterprises in investing on application programming interface (API) ecosystems. Topics covered include the evolution of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) concept into Web-friendly technologies, API availability according to the free online API registry called ProgrammableWeb and identified factors that made API ecosystems successful. They discuss abundance of API choice, API exposure, and API consumability.

The authors argue that visual analytics can demonstrate the significance of the application programming interface (API) ecosystem. Topics include the use of mashups to use APIs by business sector, the role of digital firms in the API ecosystem, and a comparison of the API use of the retail firms Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The article discusses sockets API (application programming interface). The author examines the conditions present when sockets API was developed in 1982 at the University of California Berkeley, as well as exploring the manner in which such conditions informed the way networking code has been written. Additionally, the author describes developers' attempts to work around inherent limitations built into sockets API. Other topics include the future of sockets given the changes occurring in computer networks.

The article discusses application programming interfaces (API) used in the software engineering industry. An API is a set of routines, data structures, object classes or protocols provided by libraries and operating system services in order to support the building of applications. A good API, the author states, works without friction and deals correctly with boundary conditions. Topics include the different ways one can design an API incorrectly, the inherent difficulty in designing a good API, and the collateral damage that occurs when minor, isolated design flaws interact with each other.

The article discusses the World Wide Web, using an interdisciplinary approach to study the social and technical challenges facing the Web as well as to understand the impact of the Web on society. The authors indicate that a systems approach is necessary to both create and understand the Web of the future. Topics include courses on Web scripting languages, the underlying principles of the Web, and social interactions enabled by the Web. Also discussed are a review of Web-related research and architectural and data requirements of large-scale Web applications.

The article presents information on alternate data streams (ADS). The open-ended nature of ADSs makes them an extremely powerful Windows resource worthy of deeper exploration. One may make reasonable comparisons between the Macintosh Co. data and resource forks and the Microsoft Corp. primary and alternate data streams. In New Technology File System (NTFS) the primary data stream is called $DATA. A large number of ADSs may be associated with a single primary data stream. The author emphasize that ADSs are associated with and not attached to, primary data streams. The associations are maintained in the master file table (MFT) and managed by variety of application program interfaces (API). As a simple illustration, a right mouse click on any NTFS file and subsequent selection of the properties tab will recover ADS metadata through a standard Windows MFT API. ADSs may contain anything - text, images, sound and video files. The most interesting type of "anything" is binary executable. To understand ADS, one must investigate the way the Windows MFT record works. It is unfortunate in many ways, that the power of ADSs has yet to be realized.

The article discusses the distributed object technology software technique for collaborative work between disciplines and for easier data sharing processes. Topics include the definition of an integrated programming environment across computers, the VisAD system which uses distributed object technology to improve data sharing and collaborative applications with numerical data, collaborative computational steering, application programming interfaces (API), and the four basic kinds of objects used by application developers working within the VisAD Java class library system.

The article explains the importance of permissionless innovation to the pharmaceutical industry. According to the authors, the industry could benefit from this new approach to research and development. They suggest the creation of rules that apply to platforms that promote innovation and the development of technology that benefits from open access like application program interfaces (APIs). The industry is advised to use permissionless innovation to discover new drugs.

The article discusses the U.S. court case Oracle v. Google, which may be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court and which concerns the copyright status of software application programming interfaces (APIs). The author argues that the Supreme Court should hear the case and should overturn a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that software APIs are copyrightable. Details on Google's use of the Java programming language are presented.

The article focuses on the use of side-channel analysis by hackers to reveal secure cryptographic keys and protected data and some countermeasures. It states that the affordable programmable integrated circuit open-source platform Chip-Whisperer has widened the potential user base of hackers using side-channel attacks. It mentions that side-channel analysis focuses on the core algorithm by detecting changes in data processed by algorithms running on a dedicated hardware unit or microprocessor. It comments on the vulnerability of Web application programming interface keys to side-channel attacks and talks about countermeasures against side-channel attacks.

The article looks at U.S. copyright law pertaining to the application program interfaces (APIs) of computer programs. The author discusses the 2014 U.S. Court of Appeals (Federal Circuit) ruling in the case Oracle v. Google which held that software company Oracle's APIs for the Java programming language are entitled to copyright protection, a decision which she says is contrary to numerous precedents in recent years. She says the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether to grant Internet firm Google's request to review the case and expresses support for Google on the grounds that copyright protection for APIs would damage the interoperability of programs and potentially generate much further litigation.

Universal deployment of Global Positioning System (GPS) will significantly influence various levels of Internet protocols, starting at the network layer and going all the way to the application layer. Several approaches to geographic routing through GloMo program of DARPA are currently being implemented. When it comes to service discovery based on location and distance, it is assumed that the location service will someday be as universal as the date service is today. Maps with users' current locations will be as routine as docks on computer screens today. And location functions will be bound not only to the GPS but to other location-providing devices, including radio beacons and location servers. The result could be that location is provided in areas where GPS works today, so the inside of buildings would be part of the future Application Programming Interface, just as the date is today. Programmers would be able to write applications triggered by changes of location or using location and distance as Web search criteria.

The world of computer software is one of great richness and diversity. Many thousands of software products are available to users today, providing a wide variety of information and services in a wide variety of domains. While most of these programs provide their users with significant value when used in isolation, there is increasing demand for programs that can interoperate, that is exchange information and services with other programs and thereby solve problems that cannot be solved alone. Part of what makes interoperation difficult is heterogeneity. Programs are written by different people, at different times, in different languages. Consequently, they often provide different interfaces. Agent-based software engineering was invented to facilitate the creation of software able to interoperate in such settings. In this approach to software development, application programs are written as software agents, i.e., software components that communicate with their peers by exchanging messages in an expressive agent communication language. INSETS: Knowledge Interchange Format.;Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language..

The technique of building prototypes on paper and testing them with real users is called low-fidelity prototyping or "lo-fi" for short. The value of prototyping is widely recognized, but value is not always gained in practice. Lo-fi prototyping, which requires little more in the way of implementation skills than the ones learned in kindergarten. Paper prototyping is potentially a breakthrough idea for organizations that have never tried it, since it allows to demonstrate the behavior of an interface very early in development, and test designs with real users. If quality is partially a function of the number of iterations and refinements a design undergoes before it hits the street, lo-fi prototyping is a technique that can dramatically increase quality. It is fast, it brings results early in development and allows a team to try far more ideas than they could with high-fidelity prototypes. For years software developers have used everything from demo-builders to multimedia tools to high-level languages to build prototypes.

Presents the application of heaps computer program, use to solve problems for representing a collection of items in a computer program. Description of the data structure; Procedures of operation of the program; Critical routines of the data.

Examines the relational database management as a practical foundation for productivity. Growth in demands from end users for application programs; Capabilities of data processing departments; Concept of a relational processing capability.

The article discusses the concept of data mining as a querying process and the first steps toward efficient development of knowledge discovery applications (KDD) are discussed. In this article, authors have claimed that specification, compilation and execution of query languages for database mining is a challenge that requires a similar, long-term effort extending to the next decade and beyond. In the same way business applications are currently supported using SQL-based application program interfaces, the KDD applications need to be provided with application development support. In addition to the ability to query KDD objects, data mining query languages need to provide better support for such useful data mining operations as finding nearest neighbor, clustering, or discretization and aggregate operations on data objects. Developments in multidimensional databases such as Essbase from Arbor Software are beginning to meet these goals. The recent introduction of the data cube basic operation is an interesting suggestion in this direction.

Discusses a model matrix for the implementation of security measures in information systems. Elements of the model matrix; Functions used in accessing the matrix in translation and execution time; Effect of comparison between data dependent and data independent decision rules on frequency of security checking.

The article discusses a U.S. intellectual property lawsuit between the computer companies Oracle Corp. and Google Inc. concerning the copyright of application program interfaces, arguing that the May, 2012 ruling in favor of Google will be upheld. Topics include the Java computer programming language, the acquisition of the computer company Sun Microsystems by Oracle, and previous electronic copyright court decisions.

The article discusses application programming interfaces (API) and their use in subroutine protocols. It states that protocols above the Internet Protocol layer can utilize a number of alternative network technologies underlying it without knowing how those layers function and comment how API possess similar properties. It talks about the scrutiny of common libraries for security and reliability which a common set of APIs reference.

The article offers an answer to the question of why so many computer programmers number APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) when they upgrade them.

Letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in the June 2016 issue including "Physical Key Extraction Attacks on PCs" by Daniel Genkin et al., "The Flame Graph" by Brendan Gregg, and "Improving API Usability" by Brad A. Myers and Jeffrey Stylos.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Copyrightability of Java APIs Revisited" by Pamela Samuelson.