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121 lines
4.0 KiB
HTML
121 lines
4.0 KiB
HTML
<html>
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<head>
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<title>
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Work In Progress
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</title>
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</head>
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<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
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<hr>
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<!---------------------------------------------------------------------------->
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The compiler contains some code for the following features,
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which are not yet completed, but which we hope to complete
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at some time in the future:
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<p>
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<ul>
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<li> There is a
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<a href="http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/mercury/dotnet.html">`--target il'</a>
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option, which generates MSIL code for Microsoft's new
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<a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/">.NET Common Language Runtime</a>.
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We're still working on this.
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<li> There is a `--target java' option, which generates Java.
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We still need to add support for Java foreign language interfacing,
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and implement the Mercury standard library for Java.
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<li> Thread-safe engine (the `.par' grades).
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<li> Independent AND-parallelism (the `&' parallel conjunction operator).
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See Tom Conway's PhD thesis.
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<li>
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We have incomplete support for a new, more expressive design for representing
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information about type classes and type class instances at runtime. When
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complete, the new design would allow runtime tests of type class membership,
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it would allow the tabling of predicates with type class constraints,
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and it would allow the debugger to print type_class_infos.
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<li> We have added support for dynamic link libraries (DLLs) on Windows.
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This is not yet enabled by default because it has not yet been tested
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properly.
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<li> There is a new `--optimize-constructor-last-call' option
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which identifies opportunities for LCO where a call
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is followed only by some constructor invocations.
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However, these opportunities are not exploited yet.
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<li> There is a new garbage collector that does accurate garbage
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collection (hlc.agc grade). See the comments in
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compiler/ml_elim_nested.m and the paper on our web page for more details.
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<li> Mercury is now the official programming language for Melbourne University's
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<a href="http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/aditi">Aditi deductive database system</a>.
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The Mercury compiler includes incomplete support for interfacing to Aditi.
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In particular, the support for executing ordinary Mercury code within
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Aditi queries is currently poor.
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<li> There is a `--generate-bytecode' option, for a new back-end
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that generates bytecode. The bytecode generator is basically
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complete, but we don't have a bytecode interpreter.
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</ul>
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<p>
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We also have some code that goes at least some part of the way towards
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implementing the features below. However, for these features, the
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code has not yet been committed and thus is not part of the standard
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distribution.
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<p>
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<ul>
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<li> A new implementation of the mode system using constraints.
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This is on the "mode-constraints" branch of our CVS repository.
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<li> Support for aliasing in the mode system.
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This is on the "alias" branch of our CVS repository.
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<li> Support for automatic structure reuse (reusing old data
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structures that are no longer live, rather than allocating
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new memory on the heap) and compile time garbage collection
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This is on the "reuse" branch of our CVS repository.
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<li> Better support for inter-module analysis and optimization.
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<li> Support for GCC 3.3 in the native code back-end.
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This is on the "gcc_3_3" branch of our CVS repository.
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</ul>
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<hr>
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<!-------------------------->
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<h2>
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Work Not In Progress
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</h2>
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The compiler also contains some code for the following features,
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but work on them has stopped, since finishing them off would be
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quite a bit more work, and our current priorities lie elsewhere.
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Still, these could make interesting and worthwhile projects
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if someone has the time for it.
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<p>
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<ul>
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<li> A SOAP interface.
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<li> A bytecode interpreter, for use with the `--generate-bytecode' option.
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<li> Sequence quantification (see the
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<a href="http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/research/mercury/information/reports/minutes_15_12_00.html">description</a> from the meeting minutes).
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</ul>
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</html>
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<hr>
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<!-------------------------->
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Last update was $Date: 2005-09-13 03:36:44 $ by $Author: juliensf $@cs.mu.oz.au. <br>
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</body>
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</html>
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