SPLASH

During our port of the MicroPython bytecode interpreter to the CHERI-based Arm Morello platform, we encountered a number of serious performance degradations. This paper explores several of these performance issues in detail, in each case we ...

Since the 1980s, Deutsch-Schiffman dispatch has been the standard method dispatch mechanism for languages like Smalltalk, Ruby, and Python. While it is a huge improvement over the simple, semantic execution model, it has some significant drawbacks ...

Multi-tiered virtual-machine (VM) environments with Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers are essential for optimizing dynamic language program performance, but comprehending and debugging them is challenging. In this paper, we introduce Derir; a novel tool ...

Eclipse OpenJ9 is a Java virtual machine (JVM), which initially interprets Java programs. OpenJ9 uses Just-in-Time (JIT) compilers—like the default Testarossa JIT (TRJIT)—to translate the bytecodes of the Java program into native code, which executes ...

Ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation is a well-known approach to statically compile programs to native code before they are executed. In contrast, just-in-time (JIT) compilation typically starts with executing a slower, less optimized version of the code ...

We present a garbage collector that is specifically designed for a WebAssembly-based blockchain, such as the Internet Computer. Applications on the blockchain implement smart contracts that may have indefinitely long lifetime and may hold substantial ...

The Standard Portable Intermediate Representation (SPIR-V) is a low-level binary format designed for representing shaders and compute kernels that can be consumed by OpenCL for computing kernels, and Vulkan for graphics rendering. As a binary ...

Just-in-time compilers are the main virtual machine components responsible for performance. They recompile frequently used source code to machine code directly, avoiding the slower interpretation path. Hardware acceleration and performant security ...

Julia is a dynamic language for scientific computing. For a dynamic language, Julia is surprisingly typeful. Types are used not only to structure data but also to guide dynamic dispatch – the main design tool in the language. No matter the dynamism,...

The OpenSmalltalk-VM is written in a subset of Smalltalk which gets transpiled to C. Developing the VM in Smalltalk allows to use the Smalltalk developer tooling and brings a fast feedback cycle. However, transpiling to C requires mapping ...

Debugging virtual machines can be challenging. Advanced debugging techniques using execution trace analysis can simplify debugging, but they often show only the execution of the virtual machine (in terms of machine instructions) and not the execution ...