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Souper: A Synthesizing Superoptimizer

73 points by matt_d 9y ago

chrisaycock 9y ago
Here is the source code: https://github.com/google/souper https://github.com/google/souper The paper mentions that Souper links against LLVM 3.9, but a recent commit on GitHub states that dependencies have been bumped to LLVM 5.0, the most recent version.
- CalChris 9y ago
  The Souper source has been available and Regehr has posted on his Embedded in Academia blog several times about Souper. https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1192 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1192 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1252 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1252 But then a paper is a whole nuther thing.
amelius 9y ago
The abstract is not very clear, if you ask me. I would have expected at least an indication of the usefulness of this optimizer in terms of resulting speed, or an indication of how far we are from using this technique in production settings.
- jws 9y ago
  The article contains… An Souper-optimized Clang-3.9 binary is almost 3 MB (4.4%) smaller than one built without Souper, though it is also about 2% slower. It sounds like the perceived value is more about finding clever optimization patterns and explaining them to the Clang and Visual C++ developers for them to integrate.
- chubot 9y ago
  If we can automatically derive compiler optimizations, we might be able to sidestep some of the substantial engineering challenges involved in creating and maintaining a high-quality compiler I think it's clear, but you may have assumed it's about something it's not? It's about saving effort in writing an optimizing compiler. Have you ever looked at how many and how big LLVM's optimization passes are? The automatically derived passes may not result in code that's as fast as the hand-written passes. I assume they would have mentioned that if it were the case. But they take less effort to develop.
lcurrit 9y ago
Score one for me misreading titles again. I was looking forward to finding out what a Soup Optimizer could do for me. Sounds life-changing.
thechao 9y ago
Just by reading the HN title I was 90% sure this had to be John Regehr. The man’s a monster!

73 points by matt_d 9y ago

Here is the source code: https://github.com/google/souper https://github.com/google/souper The paper mentions that Souper links against LLVM 3.9, but a recent commit on GitHub states that dependencies have been bumped to LLVM 5.0, the most recent version.

CalChris 9y ago
The Souper source has been available and Regehr has posted on his Embedded in Academia blog several times about Souper. https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1192 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1192 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1252 https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1252 But then a paper is a whole nuther thing.

amelius 9y ago

The abstract is not very clear, if you ask me. I would have expected at least an indication of the usefulness of this optimizer in terms of resulting speed, or an indication of how far we are from using this technique in production settings.

jws 9y ago
The article contains… An Souper-optimized Clang-3.9 binary is almost 3 MB (4.4%) smaller than one built without Souper, though it is also about 2% slower. It sounds like the perceived value is more about finding clever optimization patterns and explaining them to the Clang and Visual C++ developers for them to integrate.
chubot 9y ago
If we can automatically derive compiler optimizations, we might be able to sidestep some of the substantial engineering challenges involved in creating and maintaining a high-quality compiler I think it's clear, but you may have assumed it's about something it's not? It's about saving effort in writing an optimizing compiler. Have you ever looked at how many and how big LLVM's optimization passes are? The automatically derived passes may not result in code that's as fast as the hand-written passes. I assume they would have mentioned that if it were the case. But they take less effort to develop.

lcurrit 9y ago

Score one for me misreading titles again. I was looking forward to finding out what a Soup Optimizer could do for me. Sounds life-changing.

thechao 9y ago

Just by reading the HN title I was 90% sure this had to be John Regehr. The man’s a monster!