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Faster than C#: efficient implementation of dynamic languages on .NET

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ICOOOLPS '09: Proceedings of the 4th workshop on the Implementation, Compilation, Optimization of Object-Oriented Languages and Programming Systems

Pages 26 - 33

https://doi.org/10.1145/1565824.1565828

Published: 06 July 2009 Publication History

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Abstract

The Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) is a virtual machine expressly designed for implementing statically typed languages such as C#, therefore programs written in dynamically typed languages are typically much slower than C# when executed on .NET.

Recent developments show that Just In Time (JIT) compilers can exploit runtime type information to generate quite efficient code. Unfortunately, writing a JIT compiler is far from being simple.

In this paper we report our positive experience with automatic generation of JIT compilers as supported by the PyPy infrastructure, by focusing on JIT compilation for .NET. Following this approach, we have in fact added a second layer of JIT compilation, by allowing dynamic generation of more efficient .NET bytecode, which in turn can be compiled to machine code by the .NET JIT compiler.

The main and novel contribution of this paper is to show that this two-layers JIT technique is effective, since programs written in dynamic languages can run on .NET as fast as (and in some cases even faster than) the equivalent C# programs.

The practicality of the approach is demonstrated by showing some promising experiments done with benchmarks written in a simple dynamic language.

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Cited By

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Rafael de Assis Costa INazaré Santos HRafael Alves PMagno Quintão Pereira F(2014)Just-in-time value specializationComputer Languages, Systems & Structures10.1016/j.cl.2013.11.00140:2(37-52)Online publication date: Jul-2014
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cl.2013.11.001
Bebenita MBrandner FFahndrich MLogozzo FSchulte WTillmann NVenter H(2010)SPURACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1932682.186951745:10(708-725)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1932682.1869517
Bebenita MBrandner FFahndrich MLogozzo FSchulte WTillmann NVenter HCook WClarke SRinard MSullivan KSteinberg D(2010)SPURProceedings of the ACM international conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications10.1145/1869459.1869517(708-725)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1869459.1869517
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Index Terms

Faster than C#: efficient implementation of dynamic languages on .NET
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers

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Published In

ICOOOLPS '09: Proceedings of the 4th workshop on the Implementation, Compilation, Optimization of Object-Oriented Languages and Programming Systems

July 2009

73 pages

ISBN:9781605585413

DOI:10.1145/1565824

Conference Chair:
Ian Rogers

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 06 July 2009

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ECOOP '09

ECOOP '09: European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming

July 6, 2009

Genova, Italy

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Rafael de Assis Costa INazaré Santos HRafael Alves PMagno Quintão Pereira F(2014)Just-in-time value specializationComputer Languages, Systems & Structures10.1016/j.cl.2013.11.00140:2(37-52)Online publication date: Jul-2014
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cl.2013.11.001
Bebenita MBrandner FFahndrich MLogozzo FSchulte WTillmann NVenter H(2010)SPURACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1932682.186951745:10(708-725)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1932682.1869517
Bebenita MBrandner FFahndrich MLogozzo FSchulte WTillmann NVenter HCook WClarke SRinard MSullivan KSteinberg D(2010)SPURProceedings of the ACM international conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications10.1145/1869459.1869517(708-725)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2010
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1869459.1869517
Bolz CCuni AFijalkowski MRigo ARogers I(2009)Tracing the meta-levelProceedings of the 4th workshop on the Implementation, Compilation, Optimization of Object-Oriented Languages and Programming Systems10.1145/1565824.1565827(18-25)Online publication date: 6-Jul-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1565824.1565827

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