Design of Programming Languages and Computing Performance

编程语言设计与计算性能

• 批准号: RGPIN-2015-06506
• 负责人: Amaral, Jose
• 金额: $ 2.11万
• 依托单位: University of Alberta
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=614187
• 关键词: Design; Programming; Languages; Computing; Performance

The vast proliferation of programming languages in the past decade has created a rich environment for experimentation with programming language features. The programming language community has learned much about programmers' preferences and about specific features that are attractive to certain domains of computing. The community has also discovered that some features that are attractive to programmers do incurr a significant performance cost by limiting the ability of code generators and optimizers to produce efficient code. However, very few studies have attempted to connect language features with compiler optimization techniques and hardware design. The long-term vision for this research program is to contribute to the development of programming languages and also to the design and implementation of the supporting software stack that facilitates rapid prototyping of computing solutions while sustaining good execution performance. The contributions toward this aim include: (i) methodology and studies to characterize the behaviour of computer programs; (ii) tools to measure the actual limitations both of hardware support for synchronization and communication and of hardware accelerator designs; (iii) a blame analysis to map specific language features to difficult, or inefficient, code generation that hinders performance. In the short term the research program will develop a methodology to characterize program-behaviour changes that are caused by changes to data inputs; it will develop a specific methodology to determine the limitations in actual implementations of hardware support for transactional memories; and it will also contribute for the design of a new programming language that aims to deliver language features that facilitate rapid prototyping of solutions but that is very judicious in the inclusion of language features to avoid features that could hinder the job of a code generator and lead to lower performance.

过去十年中编程语言的大量涌现为编程语言功能的实验创造了丰富的环境。编程语言社区已经了解了很多关于程序员的偏好以及对某些计算领域有吸引力的特定功能的信息。社区还发现，一些对程序员有吸引力的功能确实会限制代码生成器和优化器生成高效代码的能力，从而导致显着的性能成本。然而，很少有研究尝试将语言特性与编译器优化技术和硬件设计联系起来。 该研究计划的长期愿景是为编程语言的开发以及支持软件堆栈的设计和实现做出贡献，以促进计算解决方案的快速原型设计，同时保持良好的执行性能。对这一目标的贡献包括：(i) 表征计算机程序行为的方法和研究； (ii) 衡量同步和通信硬件支持以及硬件加速器设计实际限制的工具； (iii) 责任分析，将特定的语言特征映射到阻碍性能的困难或低效的代码生成。在短期内，该研究计划将开发一种方法来描述由数据输入变化引起的程序行为变化；它将开发一种具体的方法来确定事务内存硬件支持实际实现的限制；它还将有助于设计一种新的编程语言，该语言旨在提供有助于快速构建解决方案原型的语言功能，但在包含语言功能时非常明智，以避免可能妨碍代码生成器工作并导致性能降低的功能。