[Vm-dev] Re: [Pharo-dev] [Pharo-users] [gsoc-mentors] GSoC: call for ideas

Fri Feb 14 06:55:13 UTC 2014

2014-02-13 21:22 GMT+01:00 Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com>:

>
> Hi Ronie,
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 11:47 AM, Ronie Salgado <roniesalg at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I am proposing the following as a student:
>>
>> Project idea
>>
>> Name: Unified Foreign Function Interface
>> Skill level: Advanced
>> Possible Mentors: Igor Stasenko / Esteban Lorenzano
>> Name of the Student: Ronie Salgado
>>
>> Description:
>>
>> Because NativeBoost has problems with portability and cannot be used
>> anywhere(iOS), one proposal is making a modular unified foreign function
>> interface. This UFFI should support multiples backends, a portable function
>> calls specification, portable easy to use callbacks support, and portable
>> foreign resources management.
>>
>
yes we need a unified FFI


>
>> Full Description Document:
>> http://users.dcc.uchile.cl/~rsalgado/uffi-fourth-draft.pdf
>>
>
> This is interesting but I take issue with a couple of things.  First of all
>
>     "The old Squeak FFI has problems with portability, callbacks and
> speed."
>
>  I disagree that there are problems with callbacks.  In fact, IIRC the
> only callback facility we have is that which I implemented which is used
> both by Alien and FFI and works well enough that the Newspeak system used
> it to implement a native GUI on windows where callbacks are used to receive
> Windows events.  That counts as working in my book.  Also, the architecture
> I implemented is portable to other ABIs than x86.
>

Yes, Eliot's callbacks works and are fast (even if we do not compete with
LuaJIT yet on any feature ;-))
cf. our benchmarks in IWST'13 paper:
- http://esug.org/data/ESUG2013/IWST/Slides/04-slidesNB-IWST13.pdf (slide
27)
- http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/archives/papers/Brun13a-NativeBoostIWST.pdf


Best,

Luc


> But my major objection is to this:
>
> "One interesting idea is to make a backend that uses LLVM compiler
> infrastruc- ture, because it is designed for compiling optimized C function
> and it already has multiples JIT backends. This small project is not to
> make a full Pharo VM JIT based in LLVM, because LLVM is not designed for
> that and it would require a lot of patching of LLVM."
>
> IMO that's a very poor choice.  LLVM is large, having a footprint of about
> a couple of megabytes.  The Cog JIT is in contrast about 330k at its
> largest (Newspeak, support for two instruction sets, plus primitives, plus
> GC interface, etc, etc).  If we as a community put effort into extending
> this we'll have a smaller footprint, a better JIT, and less dependencies.
>  There's insignificant opportunity for using LLVM's optimizer when
> engineering call-outs and call-backs; they're too simple.  So there's
> nothing to be gained other than bloat and dependency.  And not putting
> effort into our own infrastructure is IMO a very bad idea.
>
> Note the synergy with Clément and my work on speculative inlining which
> will extend the Cog JIT.
>
> 2014-02-13 12:21 GMT-03:00 tesonep at gmail.com <tesonep at gmail.com>:
>>
>> Project idea
>>>
>>> Description: Enhance refactorings with type information
>>> Skill level: Advance
>>> Possible Mentors: Guillermo Polito / Esteban Lorenzano / Santiago
>>> Bragagnolo
>>> Name of the Student: Pablo Tesone
>>> Keywords: tools, refactoring, code completion, type inference.
>>>
>>> Description:
>>>
>>> During the development of a program in any programming language, the IDE
>>> has a very important role. It will never replace the knowledge of the
>>> programmer but it can make his life easier.
>>> As Smalltalk doesn't have explicit type information, the IDE can not
>>> perform the same mechanisms that are present in IDE like Eclipse or
>>> Intellij IDEA. These mechanisms can be very useful.
>>> The idea of this project is to add type inference mechanisms to try to
>>> provide more information to the refactoring and code completion tools.
>>> It is important to say that the idea is not to check types or correct
>>> the program, but to allow the programmer to have more information.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Usman Bhatti <usman.bhatti at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> [Anne Etien could not post this msg on the mentors list I m forwarding
>>>> it on her behalf].
>>>>
>>>> Title: FAST JavaScript model
>>>>
>>>> Level: advanced
>>>>
>>>> Possible mentor: Anne Etien
>>>>
>>>> Possible second mentor: Nicolas Anquetil or Yuriy Tymchuk
>>>>
>>>> Description:
>>>> For in depth source code analysis a support of abstract syntax trees is
>>>> required. FAST is an abstract syntax tree extension for FAMIX meta-model
>>>> that is used by Moose technology. The goal of this project is to create
>>>> a JavaScript version of FAST.
>>>>
>>>> Technical Details:
>>>> As programming languages are different, their AST representations are
>>>> different too. FAST model aims for creation of as generic as possible
>>>> core that can be extended for different languages. Also the structure of
>>>> a model allows creation of generic algorithms like symbol resolution,
>>>> metrics calculation and rule checking that will work for any language.
>>>> Prototypes of FAST for Smalltalk and Java are already implemented.
>>>> During the project a student will implement the JavaScript model. More
>>>> detailed information about FAST is provided in the Moose day
>>>> presentation: http://youtu.be/dRr3WHOD3x4
>>>>
>>>> Benefits to the Student:
>>>> The student will gain a deep understanding of a JavaScript syntax and
>>>> abstract syntax tree model. He will also learn about PetitParser
>>>> framework, and gain knowledge about software modeling and analysis.
>>>>
>>>> Benefits to the Community:
>>>> Community will get a FAST model for JavaScript that can be used for
>>>> software assessment with Moose. Also this model can be used later in PhD
>>>> projects such as automation of source code translation. With this third
>>>> model, the community will have raw material to real think and improve
>>>> generic algorithms based on AST.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 10:42 AM, Damien Cassou <
>>>> damien.cassou at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi fellow Pharo hackers,
>>>>>
>>>>>         ESUG, the European Smalltalk User Group, is applying for this
>>>>>         year's Google Summer of Code.  As you probably know, the Summer
>>>>>         of Code provides the opportunity to fund students to work
>>>>> during
>>>>>         the summer on Pharo.  Please reply to this
>>>>>         email (be sure to use "Reply to all") if you have ideas you
>>>>>         would like to propose.
>>>>>
>>>>>         Please include a summary of the project and links to web pages
>>>>>         that can help prospective students to write their application.
>>>>>         Please also include the following information:
>>>>>
>>>>>         - if applicable, other dialects that you would be willing to
>>>>>           mentor this project for
>>>>>
>>>>>         - the skill level
>>>>>
>>>>>         - name of the mentor(s), email addresses, and possibly any IRC
>>>>>           network/channel/nickname where they can be found.
>>>>>
>>>>>         Thanks for contributing to ESUG's Summer of Code application!
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Damien Cassou
>>>>> http://damiencassou.seasidehosting.st
>>>>>
>>>>> "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without
>>>>> losing enthusiasm."
>>>>> Winston Churchill
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>>>> Groups "Smalltalk GSoC mentors" group.
>>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>>>>> an email to smalltalk-gsoc-mentors+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
>>>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  --
>>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>>> Groups "Smalltalk GSoC mentors" group.
>>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>>>> an email to smalltalk-gsoc-mentors+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
>>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Pablo Tesone.
>>> tesonep at gmail.com
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> best,
> Eliot
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/vm-dev/attachments/20140214/d93442eb/attachment-0001.htm