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Our big problem in Europe is not basic research, it's systems research. We have a European platform for Big Data and AI - Hops. It's open-source. It has nice p

Our big problem in Europe is not basic research, it's systems research. We have a European platform for Big Data and AI - Hops. It's open-source. It has nice properties, but it is harder to bootstrap an ecosystem outside the valley: (1) HDFS compatible FS with distributed metadata (2) GPU support in HopsYARN (3) UI to develop Keras/TensorFlow apps in jupyter, deploy on tensorflow serving. Spark support, too. However, getting it 'out there' is still a challenge from Europe. Here is a talk on the platform at CERN last week: https://indico.cern.ch/event/716743/ https://indico.cern.ch/event/716743/ More talks here: http://www.logicalclocks.com/eventscustom/ http://www.logicalclocks.com/eventscustom/

chrisseaton 9y ago
> Our big problem in Europe is not basic research, it's systems research. Hmm maybe we mean different things by 'systems research', but I'm in systems research and we're relatively strong in this area in Europe! Notable systems groups at Cambridge, Kent, Oxford, Glasgow, Manchester, EPFL, ETH, Linz, lots of smaller ones. Major influential systems projects started in Europe like Graal. Conferences which attract Americans to fly over like ECOOP and Curry On.
- jamesblonde 9y ago
  I agree - i would not include ECOOP and Curry On in systems research. They are prog language conferences. Systems research are the USENIX confs (NSDI, ATC, Fast), SOCC, SOSP, OSDI, Eurosys. Typically 10-30% of papers are european (often with American co-authors). I think things have gotten worse, if anything, since Peter Druschel's article on the state of systems research in Europe a decade ago: https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00444781/document https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00444781/document In any case, the largest systems software company in Europe Nokia, went belly up due to a crap OS. Now we're left with SAP, who are just trying to protect last generations' software (a DBMS and its stack). Where are Europe's next big players? And why do they sell out so quick (MySQL, Elastic, JBoss, etc)?
- nopinsight 9y ago
  Except ETH and EPFL, other names you mention do not seem to be very competitive in CS systems research with top departments in the US and even some in Asia. I am not in systems so please let us know if the ranking based on conference publications skews American or it is a fair reflection of reality. http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2012/toyear/2018/index?arch&comm&sec&mod&hpc&mobile&metrics&ops&plan&soft&da&bed&world http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2012/toyear/2018/index?arch...
  - chrisseaton 9y ago
    Three in the top ten when I select programming languages which is my sub-field. That's really not bad for Europe. I said it was relatively good. Compare it to something like AI and it's good. And this website does seem to exclude the major European conferences like ECOOP... which obviously doesn't help European institutions.
    - nopinsight 9y ago
      You noted about programming languages I see. Several names you mentioned are in the top 10 or 20 in the subfield.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  That's absolutely true but if you read between the lines it's possible that's not what he means. Lots of people in Europe use the word "Europe" when they actually mean "EU". This is such a common verbal tic it largely passes unnoticed. The systems groups you name are mostly in the UK (soon to be ex-EU) or Switzerland (not EU, doesn't want to join). Only Linz is in an EU country with no signs of that changing. Substituting Europe for EU and the original statement might well be correct from a purely geopolitical perspective (obviously tons of research is done in the USA by people from Europe so we're only discussing geography here and not ethnicity).
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chrisseaton 9y ago

> Our big problem in Europe is not basic research, it's systems research. Hmm maybe we mean different things by 'systems research', but I'm in systems research and we're relatively strong in this area in Europe! Notable systems groups at Cambridge, Kent, Oxford, Glasgow, Manchester, EPFL, ETH, Linz, lots of smaller ones. Major influential systems projects started in Europe like Graal. Conferences which attract Americans to fly over like ECOOP and Curry On.

jamesblonde 9y ago
I agree - i would not include ECOOP and Curry On in systems research. They are prog language conferences. Systems research are the USENIX confs (NSDI, ATC, Fast), SOCC, SOSP, OSDI, Eurosys. Typically 10-30% of papers are european (often with American co-authors). I think things have gotten worse, if anything, since Peter Druschel's article on the state of systems research in Europe a decade ago: https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00444781/document https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00444781/document In any case, the largest systems software company in Europe Nokia, went belly up due to a crap OS. Now we're left with SAP, who are just trying to protect last generations' software (a DBMS and its stack). Where are Europe's next big players? And why do they sell out so quick (MySQL, Elastic, JBoss, etc)?
nopinsight 9y ago
Except ETH and EPFL, other names you mention do not seem to be very competitive in CS systems research with top departments in the US and even some in Asia. I am not in systems so please let us know if the ranking based on conference publications skews American or it is a fair reflection of reality. http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2012/toyear/2018/index?arch&comm&sec&mod&hpc&mobile&metrics&ops&plan&soft&da&bed&world http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2012/toyear/2018/index?arch...
- chrisseaton 9y ago
  Three in the top ten when I select programming languages which is my sub-field. That's really not bad for Europe. I said it was relatively good. Compare it to something like AI and it's good. And this website does seem to exclude the major European conferences like ECOOP... which obviously doesn't help European institutions.
  - nopinsight 9y ago
    You noted about programming languages I see. Several names you mentioned are in the top 10 or 20 in the subfield.
peoplewindow 9y ago
That's absolutely true but if you read between the lines it's possible that's not what he means. Lots of people in Europe use the word "Europe" when they actually mean "EU". This is such a common verbal tic it largely passes unnoticed. The systems groups you name are mostly in the UK (soon to be ex-EU) or Switzerland (not EU, doesn't want to join). Only Linz is in an EU country with no signs of that changing. Substituting Europe for EU and the original statement might well be correct from a purely geopolitical perspective (obviously tons of research is done in the USA by people from Europe so we're only discussing geography here and not ethnicity).

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