research-article

An optimizing compiler for a purely functional web-application language

Author:

Adam ChlipalaAuthors Info & Claims

ICFP 2015: Proceedings of the 20th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming

Pages 10 - 21

https://doi.org/10.1145/2784731.2784741

Published: 29 August 2015 Publication History

Abstract

High-level scripting languages have become tremendously popular for development of dynamic Web applications. Many programmers appreciate the productivity benefits of automatic storage management, freedom from verbose type annotations, and so on. While it is often possible to improve performance substantially by rewriting an application in C or a similar language, very few programmers bother to do so, because of the consequences for human development effort. This paper describes a compiler that makes it possible to have most of the best of both worlds, coding Web applications in a high-level language but compiling to native code with performance comparable to handwritten C code. The source language is Ur/Web, a domain-specific, purely functional, statically typed language for the Web. Through a coordinated suite of relatively straightforward program analyses and algebraic optimizations, we transform Ur/Web programs into almost-idiomatic C code, with no garbage collection, little unnecessary memory allocation for intermediate values, etc. Our compiler is in production use for commercial Web sites supporting thousands of users, and microbenchmarks demonstrate very competitive performance versus mainstream tools.

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Cited By

Hubers AMorris J(2023)Generic Programming with Extensible Data Types: Or, Making Ad Hoc Extensible Data Types Less Ad HocProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36078437:ICFP(356-384)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3607843
Choi KCheney JLindley SReynders B(2021)A Typed Slicing Compilation of the Polymorphic RPC calculusProceedings of the 23rd International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming10.1145/3479394.3479406(1-15)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479394.3479406
Koparkar CRainey MVollmer MKulkarni MNewton R(2021)Efficient tree-traversals: reconciling parallelism and dense data representationsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34735965:ICFP(1-29)Online publication date: 19-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3473596
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Index Terms

An optimizing compiler for a purely functional web-application language
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language types

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cover image ACM Conferences

ICFP 2015: Proceedings of the 20th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming

August 2015

436 pages

ISBN:9781450336697

DOI:10.1145/2784731

General Chair:
Kathleen Fisher
Tufts University, USA
,
Program Chair:
John Reppy
University of Chicago, USA

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 50, Issue 9
ICFP '15
September 2015
436 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/2858949
Editor:
Andy Gill
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

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Published: 29 August 2015

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ICFP'15: 20th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming

August 31 - September 2, 2015

BC, Vancouver, Canada

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Overall Acceptance Rate 333 of 1,064 submissions, 31%

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ICFP '25

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October 12 - 18, 2025

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Cited By

Hubers AMorris J(2023)Generic Programming with Extensible Data Types: Or, Making Ad Hoc Extensible Data Types Less Ad HocProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36078437:ICFP(356-384)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3607843
Choi KCheney JLindley SReynders B(2021)A Typed Slicing Compilation of the Polymorphic RPC calculusProceedings of the 23rd International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming10.1145/3479394.3479406(1-15)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479394.3479406
Koparkar CRainey MVollmer MKulkarni MNewton R(2021)Efficient tree-traversals: reconciling parallelism and dense data representationsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34735965:ICFP(1-29)Online publication date: 19-Aug-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3473596
Khan MSerpanos DShrobe H(2021)Towards Scalable Security of Real-time Applications: A Formally Certified Approach2021 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA )10.1109/ETFA45728.2021.9613489(01-04)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/ETFA45728.2021.9613489
O’CONNOR LCHEN ZRIZKALLAH CJACKSON VAMANI SKLEIN GMURRAY TSEWELL TKELLER G(2021)Cogent: uniqueness types and certifying compilationJournal of Functional Programming10.1017/S095679682100023X31Online publication date: 27-Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1017/S095679682100023X
Vivek VSrinivasan RElijah Blessing RDhanasekaran R(2019)Payload fragmentation framework for high-performance computing in cloud environmentThe Journal of Supercomputing10.1007/s11227-018-2660-775:5(2789-2804)Online publication date: 1-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11227-018-2660-7
Jones MBailey JCooper T(2018)MIL, a Monadic Intermediate Language for Implementing Functional LanguagesProceedings of the 30th Symposium on Implementation and Application of Functional Languages10.1145/3310232.3310238(71-82)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3310232.3310238
Radanne GVouillon JChampin PGandon FMédini LLalmas MIpeirotis P(2018)Tierless Web Programming in the LargeCompanion Proceedings of the The Web Conference 201810.1145/3184558.3185953(681-689)Online publication date: 23-Apr-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3184558.3185953
Radanne GPapavasileiou VVouillon JBalat VSchrijvers T(2016)EliomProceedings of the 28th Symposium on the Implementation and Application of Functional Programming Languages10.1145/3064899.3064901(1-12)Online publication date: 31-Aug-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3064899.3064901
O'Connor LChen ZRizkallah CAmani SLim JMurray TNagashima YSewell TKlein G(2016)Refinement through restraint: bringing down the cost of verificationACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3022670.295194051:9(89-102)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3022670.2951940
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