SHF: CSR: Small: Fine-Grained Modularity and Reuse of VM Components

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Much of today's information infrastructure makes use of virtualmachines (VMs). For example, consumer devices typically contain VMsfor Java, JavaScript, and Flash. VMs are often well suited to roll outnew capabilities to a broad range of target devices, which is why newVMs are being created all the time. Unfortunately, most VMs today arecreated from scratch, in spite of the fact that they are broadlysimilar. This is a considerable waste of programmer time and money.The goal of this project is to make creating VMs simpler, by creatinga "toolbox" of components from which new VMs can be constructedeasily.The technical challenge is to create building blocks that can be puttogether to work as well as the custom-crafted VMs of today. In manycases, VM performance is critical. For example, on mobile devices, aslower VM might force us to run the processor at a higher speed,leading to faster battery depletion. This research promises that one may one day be able to create a competitivelyperforming VM for Java, JavaScript and Flash in which some parts areshared, so that the total size is much smaller than three separateVMs. This is important for resource-constrained devices such asmobile phones. Re-using components rather than reinventing the wheeleach time would reduce the entry cost for new languages. Sharingcomponents would also lead to pooling of debugging resources, reducingerrors and thereby leading to a safer and more stable computinginfrastructure.