6 ms·

Scala on LLVM

120 points by terhechte 13y ago

terhechte 13y ago
Note: It seems the author hasn't had time working on this project for the last couple of months. Still, I think it might be interesting for others to know about this project, maybe someone wants to play around with this.
- doogle88 13y ago
  Do you know how complete this is at the moment?
  - terhechte 13y ago
    I haven't tried it myself yet, but I really wish that somebody would continue working on this as I think it is an awesome project. My CS knowledge is not deep enough to work on this myself, I fear. The author wrote this about the project in February (on the mailing list): "So, it's not dead but there's (currently) noone working on it besides me and my time for it is very limited (to barely more than zero over the last year). I'm hopeful that I'll be able to find more time, hopefully around summer. That said, if anyone is interested in working on it, I'm more than happy to have the help. I do promise to make some time to work with potential contributors, but as you can see my latency can be pretty bad at times. " And last year in June he wrote this: "Also, most any normal scala program will not work since many parts of the standard library are not compatible yet with LLVM (because of java library dependencies)." Which probably still stands as there's no way to easily convert the java library to Scala and then to llvm.
    - yareally 13y ago
      There is a way to convert Java straight to LLVM. I would guess the developer is already aware of that though https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/java/trunk/docs/java-frontend.txt https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/java/trunk/docs/java-front...
      - gsnedders 13y ago
        The LLVM FAQ states, however: > There is an incomplete version of a Java front end available in the java module. There is no documentation on this yet so you'll need to download the code, compile it, and try it.
  - octo_t 13y ago
    Theres a talk from ScalaDays last year (I think) where the answer is basically "its not"
- ericssmith 13y ago
  Indeed. I just found this yesterday, and it is an interesting project. Not sure I'll be able to contribute in the next few months, but I certainly will "play around" with it.
est 13y ago
This project is so cool, only Elixir on Xen could be just as cool.
- eru 13y ago
  There's OCaml on Xen (http://www.xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html http://www.xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html).
  - est 13y ago
    Holycrap, exokernel is the most brilliant idea I've heard today. I don't have to mess with sk_buffer anymore!
    - gngeal 13y ago
      I wonder, how is this different from the venerable VM/CMS approach?
    - eru 13y ago
      Years ago there was lots of excitement about exokernels coming out of MIT. They haven't gotten anywhere much, yet.
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        Sure they have, you'd just have to look deep inside google to see their influence, probably.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    Their "unikernels" paper was one of the most brilliant I've read in months.
- Historiopode 13y ago
  I think that is rather straightforward: http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2013/05/02/elixir-on-xen/ http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2013/05/02/elixir-on-xen/ Most of the work really is on the Erlang side of things.
DanielRibeiro 13y ago
Scala can also host the JVM (well, a subset of it, enough to run itself): https://github.com/lihaoyi/Metascala https://github.com/lihaoyi/Metascala
octo_t 13y ago
http://www.dzone.com/links/videopresentation_compiling_scala_to_llvm_geoffre.html http://www.dzone.com/links/videopresentation_compiling_scala... for a video on the project, explaining the rationale etc by the author.
- iso-8859-1 13y ago
  Not working. This one is, though: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Scala-LLVM http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Scala-LLVM
auggierose 13y ago
"This is the paper presented at the Second Scala Workshop to be held at Stanford on June 2nd 2011." Not a good sign.
delinka 13y ago
Am I missing something about the terminology? This claims to be an "LLVM backend for Scala" which sounds wrong. Perhaps you want a backend that compiles LLVM AST to JVM bytecode. Or perhaps you want a Scala frontend that compiles Scala to LLVM AST. Unless they really intend to compile LLVM AST into Scala ... and then what?
- auggierose 13y ago
  What's front or back depends obviously on what your point of view is: Scala or LLVM.
- bronxbomber92 13y ago
  "LLVM backend for the Scala compiler". There ya go, no ambiguity.

120 points by terhechte 13y ago

Note: It seems the author hasn't had time working on this project for the last couple of months. Still, I think it might be interesting for others to know about this project, maybe someone wants to play around with this.

doogle88 13y ago
Do you know how complete this is at the moment?
- terhechte 13y ago
  I haven't tried it myself yet, but I really wish that somebody would continue working on this as I think it is an awesome project. My CS knowledge is not deep enough to work on this myself, I fear. The author wrote this about the project in February (on the mailing list): "So, it's not dead but there's (currently) noone working on it besides me and my time for it is very limited (to barely more than zero over the last year). I'm hopeful that I'll be able to find more time, hopefully around summer. That said, if anyone is interested in working on it, I'm more than happy to have the help. I do promise to make some time to work with potential contributors, but as you can see my latency can be pretty bad at times. " And last year in June he wrote this: "Also, most any normal scala program will not work since many parts of the standard library are not compatible yet with LLVM (because of java library dependencies)." Which probably still stands as there's no way to easily convert the java library to Scala and then to llvm.
  - yareally 13y ago
    There is a way to convert Java straight to LLVM. I would guess the developer is already aware of that though https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/java/trunk/docs/java-frontend.txt https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/java/trunk/docs/java-front...
    - gsnedders 13y ago
      The LLVM FAQ states, however: > There is an incomplete version of a Java front end available in the java module. There is no documentation on this yet so you'll need to download the code, compile it, and try it.
- octo_t 13y ago
  Theres a talk from ScalaDays last year (I think) where the answer is basically "its not"
ericssmith 13y ago
Indeed. I just found this yesterday, and it is an interesting project. Not sure I'll be able to contribute in the next few months, but I certainly will "play around" with it.

est 13y ago

This project is so cool, only Elixir on Xen could be just as cool.

eru 13y ago
There's OCaml on Xen (http://www.xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html http://www.xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html).
- est 13y ago
  Holycrap, exokernel is the most brilliant idea I've heard today. I don't have to mess with sk_buffer anymore!
  - gngeal 13y ago
    I wonder, how is this different from the venerable VM/CMS approach?
  - eru 13y ago
    Years ago there was lots of excitement about exokernels coming out of MIT. They haven't gotten anywhere much, yet.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      Sure they have, you'd just have to look deep inside google to see their influence, probably.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  Their "unikernels" paper was one of the most brilliant I've read in months.
Historiopode 13y ago
I think that is rather straightforward: http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2013/05/02/elixir-on-xen/ http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2013/05/02/elixir-on-xen/ Most of the work really is on the Erlang side of things.

DanielRibeiro 13y ago

Scala can also host the JVM (well, a subset of it, enough to run itself): https://github.com/lihaoyi/Metascala https://github.com/lihaoyi/Metascala

octo_t 13y ago

http://www.dzone.com/links/videopresentation_compiling_scala_to_llvm_geoffre.html http://www.dzone.com/links/videopresentation_compiling_scala... for a video on the project, explaining the rationale etc by the author.

iso-8859-1 13y ago
Not working. This one is, though: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Scala-LLVM http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Scala-LLVM

auggierose 13y ago

"This is the paper presented at the Second Scala Workshop to be held at Stanford on June 2nd 2011." Not a good sign.

delinka 13y ago

Am I missing something about the terminology? This claims to be an "LLVM backend for Scala" which sounds wrong. Perhaps you want a backend that compiles LLVM AST to JVM bytecode. Or perhaps you want a Scala frontend that compiles Scala to LLVM AST. Unless they really intend to compile LLVM AST into Scala ... and then what?

auggierose 13y ago
What's front or back depends obviously on what your point of view is: Scala or LLVM.
bronxbomber92 13y ago
"LLVM backend for the Scala compiler". There ya go, no ambiguity.