Re: PL.8 compiler references

pardo@gar.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel) writes:
>>[References on the PL.8 compiler?]


>%T An Overview of the PL.8 Compiler
>%A Marc Auslander
>%A Martin Hopkins


The above paper is the only PL.8 compiler overview paper I've seen.
There are further papers that describe various details.


Measurement of Program Improvement Algorithms
John Cocke and Peter Markstein
Proceedings of the IFIP Congress '80
Tokyo and Melbourne (!)
October 1980


(early results showing the cost and effectiveness of
various stages in the compiler)


Optimization of Range Checking
Vicky Markstein, John Cocke, and Peter Markstein
SIGPLAN Symposium on Compiler Construction
1982


(how they optimize array bounds and subrange checks)


Register Allocation via Coloring
Gregory Chaitin, et al.
Computer Languages, Volume 6
1981


Register Allocation and Spilling via Graph Coloring
Gregory Chaitin
SIGPLAN Symposium on Compiler Construction
1982


(how they handle register allocation)


Multiplication by Integer Constants
Robert Bernstein
Software -- Practice and Experience
July, 1986


(methods for converting integer multiplication
of a variable by a constant into shifts,
additions, and subtractions)


Producing Good Code for the Case Statement
Robert Bernstein
Software -- Practice and Experience
October 1985


(most complete treatment of case statements I've seen;
includes character string and floating point data types
for case selectors)


Modulus Division on a Two's Complement Machine
Henry Warren, A. Shawhan Fox, and Peter W. Markstein
Tech Report, RC 7712 (#33299) 6/13/79
IBM Watson Research Center


(how they handle division and modulo in PL.8)


The above papers are all describe techniques used specifically in the PL.8
compiler. There's plenty of earlier papers by people like Allen and Cocke
that describe analysis and optimization techiques that were surely used in
the PL.8 compiler.


Further, we should remember that much of the interest in PL.8 arose because
of the close interaction between the compiler designers and the 801 system
architects.


A Perspective on the 801/Reduced Instruction Set Computer
Marty Hopkins
IBM Systems Journal, Volume 26
1987


(a retrospective on the design of the 801, with
discussion of the interaction between architecture
design, language design (PL.8), and implementation)


801 Storage: Architecture and Storage
Albert Chang and Mark Mergen
ACM Transactions on Computer Systems
February 1988


I also recommend the entire January 1990 issue of IBM Journal of Research and
Development. It's mostly dedicated to the RS/6000, but there's plenty of
discussion of compiler issues, which all descend from the PL.8 work.


Preston Briggs
--

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