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SPO600 is a professional option in the [http://ict.senecac.on.ca/ Seneca School of Information and Communication Technology] [https://ict.senecacollege.ca/academic-programs/cty/overview CTY] and [https://ict.senecacollege.ca/academic-programs/cpa/overview CPA] programs. First offered: Winter 2014.
== SPO600 in Fall Winter 2022 ==
A new computer architecture has appeared: 64-bit ARM systems (also known as "ARM64" or "AArch64"). While AArch64 is showing up in cell phones and tablets, it is also poised to pounce on the datacentre. Most of the work of porting core software to AArch64 has been completed, and at this point, just about everything that runs on x86_64 Linux systems will run an AArch64 systems. However, the x86_64 architecture has been around for many years, and software has been well-optimized to work on that architecture; but AArch64 is relatively new, and it may be possible to get better performance with additional tuning and optimization.
In this semester, the SPO600 course will be focused on optimizing software on AArch64 systems, and specifically identifying areas where on building infrastructure to make it easier to use indirect functions (iFunc) for runtime implementation selection. This technique is widely used in a few places -- such as in glibc, the ARMv9 ''Scaleable GNU standard C library -- but it would be great if we could easily use it in other places. This would allow (for example) two versions of a particular function to be automatically compiled, with and without support for particular hardware features (such as Scalable Vector Extensions 2'' (SVE/SVE2) technology can provide a benefit), and for the best version to be automatically used at runtime.
Note that, unlike some other project-based courses, the results of the projects done in SPO600 will eventually be incorporated into the actual "upstream" open source software, and have a real impact on other people. For this reason, projects must be completed in collaboration with the relevant open source communities, using relevant [[SPO600 Communication Tools|communication tools]]. Work performed in this course will be licensed using the relevant open source licenses used by the associated community.
Working in an open source community provides the opportunity to build solid real-world experience, your technical skills and reputation, and a network of contacts, all of which are useful in developing your career.
