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Hardware tansactional memory support for lightweight dynamic language evolution

Authors:

Nicholas Riley,

Craig ZillesAuthors Info & Claims

OOPSLA '06: Companion to the 21st ACM SIGPLAN symposium on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications

Pages 998 - 1008

https://doi.org/10.1145/1176617.1176758

Published: 22 October 2006 Publication History

Abstract

Lightweight dynamic language runtimes have become popular in part because they simply integrate with a wide range of native code libraries and embedding applications. However, further development of these runtimes in the areas of concurrency, efficiency and safety is impeded by the desire to maintain their native code interfaces, even at a source level. Native extension modules' lack of thread safety is a significant barrier to dynamic languages' effective deployment on current and future multicore and multiprocessor systems. We propose the use of hardware transactional memory (HTM) to aid runtimes in evolving more capable and robust execution models while maintaining native code compatibility. To explore these ideas, we constructed a full-system simulation infrastructure consisting of an HTM implementation, modified Linux kernel and Python interpreter.Python includes thread constructs, but its primary implementation is not architected to support their parallel execution. With small changes, a runtime can be made HTM-aware to enable parallel execution of Python code and extension modules. We exploit the semantics of Python execution to evaluate individual bytecodes atomically by default, using nested transactions to emulate programmer-specified locking constructs where possible in existing threaded code. We eliminate common transactional conflicts and defer I/O within transactions to make parallel Python execution both possible and efficient. Transactions also provide safety for foreign function invocations. We characterize several small Python applications executing on our infrastructure.

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Cited By

Meier RRigo AGross T(2018)Virtual machine design for parallel dynamic programming languagesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/32764792:OOPSLA(1-25)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3276479
Stadler LWelc AHumer CJordan M(2016)Optimizing R language execution via aggressive speculationACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298923652:2(84-95)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3093334.2989236
Chari GGarbervetsky DMarr S(2016)Building efficient and highly run-time adaptable virtual machinesACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298923452:2(60-71)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3093334.2989234
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Index Terms

Hardware tansactional memory support for lightweight dynamic language evolution
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
      1. Runtime environments

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

OOPSLA '06: Companion to the 21st ACM SIGPLAN symposium on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications

October 2006

530 pages

ISBN:159593491X

DOI:10.1145/1176617

General Chair:
Peri Tarr
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, USA
,
Program Chair:
William R. Cook
University of Texas at Austin, USA

Copyright © 2006 ACM.

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Published: 22 October 2006

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Cited By

Meier RRigo AGross T(2018)Virtual machine design for parallel dynamic programming languagesProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/32764792:OOPSLA(1-25)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3276479
Stadler LWelc AHumer CJordan M(2016)Optimizing R language execution via aggressive speculationACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298923652:2(84-95)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3093334.2989236
Chari GGarbervetsky DMarr S(2016)Building efficient and highly run-time adaptable virtual machinesACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298923452:2(60-71)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3093334.2989234
Meier RRigo AGross T(2016)Parallel virtual machines with RPythonACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298923352:2(48-59)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3093334.2989233
Marr SDaloze BMössenböck H(2016)Cross-language compiler benchmarking: are we fast yet?ACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298923252:2(120-131)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
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Warth ADubroy PGarnock-Jones T(2016)Modular semantic actionsACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298923152:2(108-119)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
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Hemann JFriedman DByrd WMight M(2016)A small embedding of logic programming with a simple complete searchACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298923052:2(96-107)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
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De Wael MSwalens JDe Meuter W(2016)Just-in-time inheritance: a dynamic and implicit multiple inheritance mechanismACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298922952:2(37-47)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
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Park CIm HRyu S(2016)Precise and scalable static analysis of jQuery using a regular expression domainACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093334.298922852:2(25-36)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
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Meier RRigo AGross TIerusalimschy R(2016)Parallel virtual machines with RPythonProceedings of the 12th Symposium on Dynamic Languages10.1145/2989225.2989233(48-59)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2016
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