How I live with cold starts on GAE's JVM

It has come to my attention the (obvious and logical) fact that loading the JVM is expensive, time-wise. And Google's Application Engine (GAE) makes no exception, so whenever one servlet is "hit" long after any previous server interaction, a JVM is started. In practice, this means that we're looking at a "loading..." spinning wheel with a duration of about 10s, +-5s. That's kind of a bother, but that's not the worse. If we're talking about a single-page modeled web app, the user is bound to leave it opened for some time (minutes, not to say hours, before he is able to gather all the info to fill in that devilish form!). And after that time, when he is eager to finish up his task (that has already took him enough time outside the browser window), guess what? That's right, wait another 10s for the server's JVM to wake up. Off course this is a non-issue for heavy-traffic web apps, but this platform is great for experiments and small business products, and it's this niche I'm worried with (perhaps because I'm also targeting it :) )

Today's scenario is yet a bit worse. The time it takes for a GAE JVM to get drowsy is often shorter than 5 minutes (here are some conclusions about timings, as well as other suggestions to alleviate the problem - but insufficient, still). I could only imagine Google is having a hard time escalating their servers to everyone, but they should get a solution to this. Otherwise people will start hacking this problem subversively. In fact, they're already doing it: exploits are there to make a repeated task that keeps the JVM in question alive - a ping, let's call it that! But as soon as this hack becomes mainstream and widespread, Google will hog down with requests. So I'm sort of against it. But since there is no viable solution so far, I started reconsidering things.

What I ended up was a compromise. For applications like the ones I'm developing there will be only 3 or 4 users, and their request will be very scarce and scattered. So I will not use a frequent and constant ping bot. Instead, I made a client-side that does that pinging, but only while the application is opened. So yes, the user has to wait some seconds to fire up the application for the first time. But afterwards, a background (i.e., asynchronous) periodic request keeps the JVM ready to listen for the application's demands.

Here's a possible Javascript code to make this happen. The trick here is to create a script dynamically (i.e., appending it to the body), and setting its source to any servlet's served URL (in this case, a ping one).

International Lisp Conference 2010

I was asked to spread the word about the upcoming International Lisp Conference 2010 (ILC-2010). So here you have the Call for Arms Papers (from the original attachment):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   International Lisp Conference 2010   

   October 19-21, 2010   

   John Ascuaga's Nugget (Casino)   

   Reno/Sparks, Nevada, USA (near Lake Tahoe)   

     

   Collocated with SPLASH 2010 (OOPSLA & DLS & more)   

   see also http://splashcon.org as well as

   http://www.dynamic-languages-symposium.org/dls-10/   

     

   In association with ACM SIGPLAN (PENDING)       

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Association of Lisp Users is pleased to announce that the 2010

International Lisp Conference will be held in Reno, Nevada, in

collocation with SPLASH 2010. The scope includes all areas related to

the Lisp family of programming languages.

Accepted papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library (PENDING).

Extended Abstracts and Papers must be written in English and submitted

electronically at http://www.easychair.org/conferences?conf=ilc2010 in

PDF or WORD format. If an Extended Abstract is submitted, it must be

between 2 and 4 pages, with full paper to follow before final deadline.

Final submissions must not exceed 15 pages and need to use the ACM

format, for which templates which can be found at:

   http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html.

Important Dates:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Deadline for Abstract Submission: August 1, 2010

* Deadline for Paper Submission: September 6, 2010

* Author notification: September 20, 2010

* Final paper due (in electronic form): October 5, 2010

* Conference: October 19-21, 2010

Scope:

~~~~~~

Lisp is one of the greatest ideas from computer science and a major

influence for almost all programming languages and for all

sufficiently complex software applications.

The International Lisp Conference is a forum for the discussion of

Lisp and, in particular, the design, implementation and application of

any of the Lisp dialects. We encourage everyone interested in Lisp to

participate.

We invite high quality submissions in all areas involving Lisp

dialects and any other languages in the Lisp family, including, but

not limited to, ACL2, AutoLisp, Clojure, Common Lisp, ECMAScript,

Dylan, Emacs Lisp, ISLISP, Racket, Scheme, etc.

Topics may include any and all combinations of Lisp and:

* Language design and implementation

* Language critique

* Language integration, inter-operation and deployment

* Applications (especially commercial)

* 'Pearls' (of wisdom)

* Experience reports and case studies

* Reflection, meta-object protocols, meta-programming

* Domain-specific languages

* Programming paradigms and environments

* Parallel and distributed computing

* Software evolution

* Theorem proving

* Scientific computing

* Data mining

* Semantic web

We also encourage submissions about known ideas as long as they are

presented in a new setting and/or in a highly elegant way.

Authors concerned about the appropriateness of a topic may communicate

by electronic mail with the program chair prior to submission.

Each paper should explain its contributions in both general and

technical terms, identifying what has been accomplished, explaining

why it is significant, and comparing it with previous work. Authors

should strive to make their papers understandable to a broad audience.

Each paper will be judged according to its significance, novelty,

correctness, clarity, and elegance.

The official language of the conference is English. Some further

information is available at the conference web site, with more details

added later. See: http://www.international-lisp-conference.org

Technical Program:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Original submissions in all areas related to the conference themes are

invited for the following categories.

* Papers: Technical papers of up to 15 pages that describe original

   results or explain known ideas in new and elegant ways, or extended

   abstracts of 4 pages soon followed by the corresponding full paper.

* Demonstrations: Abstracts of up to 4 pages for demonstrations of

   tools, libraries, and applications.

* Tutorials: Abstracts of up to 4 pages for in-depth presentations

   about topics of special interest for at least 90 minutes and up to

   180 minutes.

* Workshops: Abstracts of up to 4 pages for groups of people who

   intend to work on a focused topic for half a day.

* Panel discussions: Abstracts of up to 4 pages for discussions about

   current themes. Panel discussion proposals must mention panel

   members who are willing to partake in a discussion.

* Lightning talks: Abstracts of up to one page for talks to last for

   no more than 5 minutes.

Depending on the technical content, each submitted paper will be

classified by the program committee as either a technical paper or as

an experience paper; and authors will be informed about this

classification. Note that all interesting submissions are considered

valuable contributions to the success of the ILC series of

conferences. As in past ILC's since 2007, accepted papers in both

categories will be presented at the conference, included in the

proceedings, and submitted to the ACM digital library.

Organizing Committee:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* General Chair:

   JonL White - The Ginger IceCream Factory of Palo Alto, ALU

* Program Chair:

   Antonio Leitao - Instituto Superior Tecnico/INESC-ID

* Conference Treasurer:

   Duane Rettig - Franz, Inc., ALU Director

* Publicity Chair:

   Daniel Herring - ALU Director

* ALU Treasurer:

   Rusty Johnson - TASC, Inc., ALU Director

Program Committee:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Antonio Leitao - Instituto Superior Tecnico/INESC-ID, Portugal

* Alex Fukunaga - University of Tokyo, Japan

* Charlotte Herzeel - Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

* Christophe Rhodes - Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK

* Didier Verna - EPITA Research and Development Laboratory, France

* Duane Rettig - Franz, Inc., USA

* Giuseppe Attardi - University of Pisa, Italy

* Jeff Shrager - Symbolic Systems Program, Stanford University, USA

* Joe Marshall - Google, Inc., USA

* Julian Padget - University of Bath, UK

* Keith Corbett - Clozure Associates, USA

* Kent Pitman - PTC, USA

* Manuel Serrano - INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France

* Marc Feeley - University of Montreal, Canada

* Marie Beurton-Aimar University of Bordeaux 1, France

* Mark Stickel - SRI International, USA

* Matthias Felleisen - Northeastern University, USA

* Scott McKay - ITA Software, USA

Contacts:

~~~~~~~~~

* Questions: ilc10-organizing-committee at alu.org

* Program Chair: ilc2010 at easychair.org

For more information, see http://www.international-lisp-conference.org

I'm curious about when are "clojurers" going to join forces with the rest of lispers on these kind of conferences. Specially since this one is collocated with SPLASH 2010, maybe it isn't such a bad idea to start doing it now :)