[MLton] approaches to parallelism in ML

[Kip Macy]

>    The x86 native codegen is the product of one full-time summer internship
>    (2000), one half-time summer internship (2001), and steady part-time
>    work (since fall 2000).  And the x86 native codegen is by no means a
>    highly tuned beast.  We've revised the lowest level ILs since the x86
>    native codegen was started (for the better, making future native
>    codegens likely to be slightly easier), but I would still estimate a
>    good 4 to 6 months of full-time work to get something in the ballpark
>    (i.e., with the C-codgen about 25% slower).

I recalled it being a substantial amount of work.

How much of a performance gain do generated executables get from the
NCG?

>
> I remain of the opinion that if someone wants to invest the time in a
> low-level target, their best bet is to write a MLRISC or C-- or LLVM
> codegen, and gain multiple targets at one go.  MLton is doing a lot of
> optimization in the middle-end; one doesn't need a particularly
> sophisticated backend to do better than the C codegen.

>From a *very* cursory examination of the web pages and posts I've
read in the past, LLVM appears to be the most actively developed of the
three. Is this correct? Would porting to one of these be the same amount
of work as to a specific architecture?

Thanks.


		-Kip