Irwin D'Souza is an active contributor to the Eclipse OpenJ9 project [1]. His primary expertise is in control logic and AOT where has done an excellent job of re-inventing and documenting the core infrastructure of AOT in the compiler component of Eclipse OpenJ9 project.
In his more recent and technically challenging piece of work Irwin has led the re-design and development of a new AOT run time assumptions infrastructure in the JIT compiler by introducing the Symbol Validation Manager [2]. This substantial piece of work has opened the doors to higher performance AOT code giving us the necessary push to enable shared classes by default in the Eclipse OpenJ9 0.12.0 release. As a direct result of Irwin's work we have seen performance improvements of AOT compiled code by up to 15% which enables Eclipse OpenJ9 to continue its dominance in startup time metrics over its competitors.
Along the way Irwin has written an excellent set of blog posts on how the various parts of the AOT infrastructure, including relocation and validation of AOT code [3]. However this is not Irwin's first contribution to documenting the technical details of the Eclipse OpenJ9 project. He has been involved in Eclipse OpenJ9's exploitation and documentation of hardware assisted Concurrent Scavenge [4] and he is a regular contributor to very detailed compiler control documents written in the projects GitHub repository [5].
Since the inception of the Eclipse OpenJ9 project Irwin has contributed a total of 30 pull requests totaling to 46 distinct commits [6]. These numbers do not tell the full story as the area of the JVM Irwin typically works in requires a high degree of expertise and careful engineering which is reflected in his high contribution ratio (11,798 ++ 2,155 --). Irwin is frequently found in other control related PRs providing constructive code reviews and suggestions to other contributors. When his expertise is explicitly sought by other contributors for a code review, his reviews are timely and thorough. He can be frequently found in the Eclipse OpenJ9 Slack workspace providing input to conversations at hand. Irwin has publicly presented some of his work at conferences such as CASCON thereby driving interest into the Eclipse OpenJ9 project.
Among all Irwin has time and time again proved on various issues and pull requests that his values and goals align with that of the Eclipse OpenJ9 project. His judgment and expertise in the area of control and AOT are well respected among the broader project community. He is a strong advocate for documentation and is vocal about the strengths and innovation of the Eclipse OpenJ9 project to the open source community.
With Irwin's past and current track record and all the above qualities I believe Irwin will make an excellent committer to the Eclipse OpenJ9 project.
[1] https://github.com/eclipse/openj9/commits?author=dsouzai
[2] https://github.com/eclipse/openj9/issues/2921
[3] https://blog.openj9.org/author/dsouzai/
[4] https://developer.ibm.com/javasdk/2017/09/25/concurrent-scavenge-using-…
[5] https://github.com/eclipse/openj9/commits/master/doc/compiler
[6] https://github.com/eclipse/openj9/graphs/contributors
| Voter | Vote | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Filip Jeremic | +1 | +1 implied by nomination |
| Mark Stoodley | +1 | I agree: Irwin has shown a high degree of care and attention to detail as well as commitment to the project's success. I heartily agree with his nomination. |
| Andrew Craik | +1 | I agree; Irwin has been doing great work and would be an asset to the committer team on this project. |
| Charlie Gracie | +1 | |
| Peter Shipton | 0 | I haven't been following what Irwin has been doing, but no objections. |
| Daryl Maier | +1 | |
| Shelley Lambert | +1 | Irwin has both attention to detail and a broad view of the project goals. I especially like that he has thoughtfully considered and suggested test enhancements for the AOT work. |
| Marius Pirvu | +1 | I totally agree with everything Filip said about Irwin. |
PMC Approval
- Gunnar Wagenknecht (+1) Welcome!