Small memory software

If you are a developer, team leader, or manager building applic- ations for limited-memory systems, you will find everything you need to design and implement effective software with success.

- 27 pattems, fully illustrated with implementation notes for reference, plus example code in C++ or Java

o Pattems organized into five major techniques: small data structures, memory allocation, compression, secondary storage, and small architecture

o Easy-to-use layout, with a quick-reference pattem index on the inside covers

o Tips on efficient memory allocation, dealing with memory exhaustion, using ROM instead of RAM, avoiding memory leaks, and automatically recycling unused memory

o An accompanying website, www.smallmemory.com, containing detailed implementations of ail the substantial examples in the book, which can be used as templates for your own implementations.

'Anyone who has ever uttered the joyous words, 1 saved eight bytes!" will feel at home with this coherent, easy-to-use set of pattems for limited memory systems. As the computing world moves toward hand-held and specialized tiny computing devices, these pattems will continue to show their worth. This book should be on the shelf of every person who writes software for small systems.' - Neil Harrison. Avaya Inc.

'Many of us have been waiting for someon to tackle the hard problems of resource shortages. In the growing collection of pattems, this book will provide some guidelines for these problems in a wellwritten, thoroughly enjoyable style. The authors share their real-world experience i the best pattems tradition - ail the exampl provide ample opportunity to see the solutions at work. This is a muet have!' - Linda Rieinil

'The 1980s and 1990s can be described, harshly but accurately, as decades when software developers were increasingly careless about how much memory their software consumed. In Small Memory Software, Weir and Noble give a timely wake-up cail, pointing out some unexpected merits of more thoughtful usage of memory - and giving clear practical advice that should help reverse what has been a most unfortunate historical trend.' - David Wood, Executive Vice President, Symbian

CONTENTS

• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• How to use this book
• Introduction to small memory
• Introduction to patterns
• The patterns in this book
• Srnall Architecture
• Memory Limit
• Small Interfaces
• Partial Failure
• Captain Oates
• Read-Only Memory
• Hooks
• Secondary Storage
• Application Switching
• Data Files
• Resource Files
• Packages
• Paging
• 3 Compression
• Table Compression
• Difference Coding
• Adaptive Compression
• 4 Small Data Structures
• Packed Data
• Sharing
• Copy-on-Write
• Embedded Pointers
• Multiple Representations
• 5 Memory Allocation
• Fixed Allocation
• Variable Allocation
• Memory Discard
• Pooled Allocation
• Compaction
• Reference Counting
• Garbage Collection
• Appendix: A Discussion of Forces
• Forces in this book
• Forces related to non-functional req.uirements
• Architectural impact
• Development process
• references
• Index