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About

About

I am a a Computer Science Postdoc working on reducing, analyzing, and optimizing the energy consumption levels for software, by using source code analysis and manipulation techniques. I was also awarded an FCT grant for my PhD research. I am one of the founding members of the Green Software for Space Control Mission (GreenSSCM) project, the Software Repositories for Green Computing FLAD/NSF project, and the Green Software Lab: Green Computing as an Engineering Discipline (GSL) project.

I concluded my PhD at the University of Minho, under the MAP-i doctoral programme with the thesis titled "Energyware Engineering: Techniques and Tools for Green Software Development" under the Green Software Lab (GSL) project . I received my MSc degree in Informatics Engineering in 2013, with my thesis "Querying for Model-Driven Spreadsheets" under the SpreadSheets as a Programming Paradigm (SSaaPP) project.

Currently, my research interests focus on green computing, human-computer interaction, and source code analysis and manipulation.

Interest
Topics
Details

Details

  • Name

    Rui Alexandre Pereira
  • Role

    External Research Collaborator
  • Since

    01st July 2013
001
Publications

2023

CI/CD Meets Block-Based Languages

Authors
da Giao, H; Pereira, R; Cunha, J;

Publication
2023 IEEE SYMPOSIUM ON VISUAL LANGUAGES AND HUMAN-CENTRIC COMPUTING, VL/HCC

Abstract
Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines play a vital role in the DevOps process, enabling developers to automate and enhance software delivery. However, the existence of multiple technologies, such as GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, or Jenkins, poses challenges due to their lack of interoperability and the use of different programming languages for pipeline construction. To address these challenges and improve the CI/CD process, our objective is to develop a block-based language specifically designed for representing CI/CD pipelines. With our language, we intend to empower users to more easily create correct pipelines. Through an interactive and user-friendly process, our approach guides users in constructing pipelines, ensuring accuracy and reducing errors. Additionally, our language will facilitate seamless transitions between different pipeline technologies, providing users with flexibility and ease of adoption.

2022

WebAssembly versus JavaScript: Energy and Runtime Performance

Authors
De Macedo, J; Abreu, R; Pereira, R; Saraiva, J;

Publication
2022 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ICT FOR SUSTAINABILITY (ICT4S 2022)

Abstract
The worldwide Web has dramatically evolved in recent years. Web pages are dynamic, expressed by programs written in common programming languages given rise to sophisticated Web applications. Thus, Web browsers are almost operating systems, having to interpret/compile such programs and execute them. Although JavaScript is widely used to express dynamic Web pages, it has several shortcomings and performance inefficiencies. To overcome such limitations, major IT powerhouses are developing a new portable and size/load efficient language: WebAssembly. In this paper, we conduct the first systematic study on the energy and run-time performance of WebAssembly and JavaScript on the Web. We used micro-benchmarks and also real applications in order to have more realistic results. Preliminary results show that WebAssembly, while still in its infancy, is starting to already outperform JavaScript, with much more room to grow. A statistical analysis indicates that WebAssembly produces significant performance differences compared to JavaScript. However, these differences differ between micro-benchmarks and real-world benchmarks. Our results also show that WebAssembly improved energy efficiency by 30%, on average, and showed how different WebAssembly behaviour is among three popular Web Browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox. Our findings indicate that WebAssembly is faster than JavaScript and even more energy-efficient. Additionally, our benchmarking framework is also available to allow further research and replication.

2022

ICT4S2022 - Demonstrations and Posters Track Proceedings

Authors
Pereira, R; Rakic, G;

Publication
CoRR

Abstract

2022

Energy Efficiency of Web Browsers in the Android Ecosystem

Authors
Gonçalves, N; Rua, R; Cunha, J; Pereira, R; Saraiva, J;

Publication
CoRR

Abstract

2021

Ranking programming languages by energy efficiency

Authors
Pereira, R; Couto, M; Ribeiro, F; Rua, R; Cunha, J; Fernandes, JP; Saraiva, J;

Publication
SCIENCE OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING

Abstract
This paper compares a large set of programming languages regarding their efficiency, including from an energetic point-of-view. Indeed, we seek to establish and analyze different rankings for programming languages based on their energy efficiency. The goal of being able to rank programming languages based on their energy efficiency is both recent, and certainly deserves further studies. We have taken rigorous and strict solutions to 10 well defined programming problems, expressed in (up to) 27 programming languages, from the well known Computer Language Benchmark Game repository. This repository aims to compare programming languages based on a strict set of implementation rules and configurations for each benchmarking problem. We have also built a framework to automatically, and systematically, run, measure and compare the energy, time, and memory efficiency of such solutions. Ultimately, it is based on such comparisons that we propose a series of efficiency rankings, based on single and multiple criteria. Our results show interesting findings, such as how slower/faster languages can consume less/more energy, and how memory usage influences energy consumption. We also present a simple way to use our results to provide software engineers and practitioners support in deciding which language to use when energy efficiency is a concern. In addition, we further validate our results and rankings against implementations from a chrestomathy program repository, Rosetta Code., by reproducing our methodology and benchmarking system. This allows us to understand how the results and conclusions from our rigorously and well defined benchmarked programs compare to those based on more representative and real-world implementations. Indeed our results show that the rankings do not change apart from one programming language.