Developing the field of software performance engineering
Developing the field of software performance engineering
Wednesday, 29th of October 2025 (16:00 – 17:00hrs, UK Time)
Abstract
With the recent demise of Moore’s Law, software developers can no longer depend on chip makers for “free” performance. Now, they have to work for it, leading to a renaissance of software performance engineering (SPE) – making programs run fast or otherwise consume few resources such as time, storage, or energy. We consider “developing the field of SPE.” By framing SPE as a field, we aim for both internal innovation and external impact. Our particular external concern is how the broader field of computer science will fare without an SPE community that provides a common infrastructure, a shared understanding of SPE principles, and a lingua franca. We look at developing the field of SPE with this target in mind. In other words, we face a choice: SPE can be tedious, expensive, haphazard, and controlled by “high priests”; or it can be fun, cheap, principled, and democratically available to the average programmer. We review guiding principles of developing a field (in general), and we discuss key factors for developing the field of SPE (in particular). Our discussion is rooted in the example of Fastcode, an NSF-funded open-source ecosystem for making SPE easy and fun. Fastcode emerged in 2021 from the OpenCilk project at MIT to become a “big tent” for SPE. Fastcode holds space for “all of SPE” with its four pillars: (1) research: supporting the development of SPE as a principled scientific field, (2) education: making it easier for instructors to teach SPE, (3) technology: improving the tools that people use for SPE, and (4) skill-building: providing places for hands-on practicing of SPE skills.
Speaker’s Bio Dr. Bruce Hoppe is the Community Manager for Fastcode, an NSF-funded open-source ecosystem dedicated to software performance engineering. Dr. Hoppe founded Connective Associates in 2005, and for twenty years he has helped organizations to catalyze networks for learning and impact. Dr. Hoppe has published award-winning academic papers on network optimization algorithms, fault-tolerant distributed systems, and evaluating leadership networks. He loves to create space for great things to happen, and his favorite ways of creating space include meditating, writing, and jazz drumming. He founded Arlington Porchfest, a grassroots music festival, in 2016. He received his PhD from the Computer Science Department at Cornell University in 1995.