A working-set approach to reduce the download-execution time of mobile programs

The on-demand downloading of application code over a wireless network is an emerging paradigm for the distributed environment of mobile computing devices. In this environment, a user must wait while a mobile computing device fetches the application code over the network prior to execution. To reduce this downloading latency, we have developed a download approach based on working sets, and have designed and implemented a working-set generator that defines working sets by focusing on the intervals during which a program refers to junctions, variables, and constants. The program invocation times with this approach, simulated using trace information obtained from actual program behavior on Linux, have been compared with those of all-at-once, page, class, and symbol download approaches. This simulation showed that the working-set approach can reduce the download-execution time compared to that with the four other approaches.