‹Programming› 2018
Mon 9 - Thu 12 April 2018 Nice, France
Thu 12 Apr 2018 10:30 - 11:00 at Baie des Anges A + B - Session 4

Context: Software development tools that interact with running programs such as debuggers, profilers, and dynamic analysis frameworks are presumed to demand difficult tradeoffs among implementation complexity (cost), functionality, usability, and performance. Among the many consequences, tools are often delivered late (if ever), have limited functionality, require non-standard configurations, and impose serious performance costs on running programs.

Inquiry: Can flexible tool support become a practical, first class, intrinsic requirement for a modern highperformance programming language implementation framework?

Approach: We extended the Truffle Language Implementation Framework, which together with the GraalVM execution environment makes possible very high performance language implementations. Truffle’s new Instrumentation Framework is language-agnostic and designed to derive high performance from the same technologies as do language implementations. Truffle Instrumentation includes: (1) low overhead capture of execution events by dynamically adding “wrapper” nodes to executing ASTs; (2) extensions to the Language Implementation Framework that allow per-language specialization, primarily for visual display of values and names, among others; and (3) versatile APIs and support services for implementing many kinds of tools without VM modification.

Knowledge: It is now possible for a client in a production environment to insert (dynamically, with thread safety) an instrumentation probe that captures and reports abstractly specified execution events. A probe in fully optimized code imposes very low overhead until actually used to access (or modify) execution state. Event capture has enabled construction of numerous GraalVM services and tools that work for all implemented languages, either singly or in combination. Instrumentation has also proved valuable for implementing some traditionally tricky language features, as well as some GraalVM services such as placing bounds on resources consumed by running programs.

Grounding: Tools for debugging (via multiple clients), profiling, statement counting, dynamic analysis, and others are now part of GraalVM or are in active development. Third parties have also used Truffle Instrumentation for innovative tool implementations.

Importance: Experience with Truffle Instrumentation validates the notion that addressing developer tools support as a forethought can change expectations about the availability of practical, efficient tools for highperformance languages. Tool development becomes a natural part of language implementation, requiring little additional effort and offering the advantage of early and continuous availability.

Thu 12 Apr

Displayed time zone: Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna change

10:30 - 12:00
10:30
30m
Talk
Fast, Flexible, Polyglot Instrumentation Support for Debuggers and other Tools
Research Papers
Michael Van De Vanter Oracle Labs, Chris Seaton Oracle Labs, Michael Haupt eBay, Christian Humer Oracle Labs, Switzerland, Thomas Wuerthinger Oracle Labs
Link to publication DOI
11:00
30m
Talk
Proactive Empirical Assessment of New Language Feature Adoption via Automated Refactoring: The Case of Java 8 Default Methods
Research Papers
Raffi Khatchadourian City University of New York (CUNY) Hunter College, Hidehiko Masuhara Tokyo Institute of Technology
Link to publication DOI
11:30
30m
Talk
Introspection for C and its Applications to Library Robustness
Research Papers
Manuel Rigger Johannes Kepler University Linz, Rene Mayrhofer Johannes Kepler University Linz, Roland Schatz Johannes Kepler University Linz, Matthias Grimmer Oracle Labs, Austria, Hanspeter Mössenböck JKU Linz, Austria
Link to publication DOI Media Attached