Advanced compiler construction seminar

Main course literature

• (PJ92): Simon Peyton Jones, "Implementing lazy functional languages on stock hardware: the Spineless Tagless G-machine", JFL 2 (1992)
• (MPJ06): Simon Marlow and Simon Peyton Jones, "Making a fast curry: push/enter vs. eval/apply for higher-order languages", JFL 16 (2006). Wednesday 14 Nov 2007:
• (Boq99) Urban Boquist, "Code Optimisation Techniques for Lazy Functional Languages",, 1999. Also available in a 2-pages-on-1 version

Additional reading

• How to install EHC on your system
• The structure of EHC
• Technical overview of EHC source files
• GHC implementation commentary

Meetings

• Monday 10 Nov 2008
  Introduction.
• Thursday 13 Nov 2008
  Read PJ92 sec 1-3
  Read MPJ06 sec 1-3
• Monday 17 Nov 2008
  Read PJ92 sec 4: Haskell to STG translation
  Read MPJ06 sec 4: operational semantics
  Skim PJ92 sec 5: operational semantics
  Skim MPJ06 sec 5: implement push/enter
  Read MPJ06 sec 6: implement eval/apply
• Thursday 20 Nov 2008
  Read PJ92 sec 6-8: jumps in C, heap layout,
  Skim PJ92 sec 9: compilation to C
  Read MPJ06 sec 7-8: results
• Monday 24 Nov 2008
  Read Boq99 chapter 1 (skip sec 1.3) (=16 pages)
  Read Boq99 chapter 2 (=37 pages)
  View EHC/src/ehc/GrinCode/AbsSyn.cag
  Challenge: download the GHC sources and find the implementation of stgApplyNP. Hint: it is spelled stg_ap_
• Thursday 27 Nov 2008
  Read Boq99 chapter 3 (=13 pages)
  Read Boq99 chapter 4 until page 88 (=12 pages)
  Compare it to the paper describing the implementation as used in EHC
  or directly view EHC/src/ehc/GrinCode/PointToAnalysis.cag
• Monday 1 Dec 2008
  Have another look at the material we studied before, that is the Grin language, translating Lam into Grin, and doing Heap-Points-To analysis on Grin code.
  This time, let's try to really understand what's happening when evaluating functions, in particular what happens when applying functions (which may not be known) to arguments (of which there may not be enough).
• Thursday 4 Dec 2008
  Read Boq99 chapter 4 until page 142 (=54 pages)
• Monday 8 Dec 2008
  Read the remainder of Boquist chaper 4 (20 more pages).
• Thursday 11 Dec 2008
  Read Haskell Program Coverage by Andy Gill and Colin Runciman, Haskell Workshop 2007.
• Monday 15 Dec 2008
  Read Call-pattern specialisation for Haskell programs by Simon Peyton Jones, ICFP 2007.
• Thursday 18 Dec 2008
  Two papers on JIT compilation
• Monday 5 Jan 2008
  Read A definitional interpreter for higher-order programming languages by John Reynolds.
• Thursday 8 Jan 2008
  No session
• Friday 9 Jan 2009
  On this day is the FP-dag 2009. I think it is a good idea to register for attendance.