DConf 2014 Day 2 Talk 2: Refactoring JIT Compilation by Maxime Chevalier-Boisvert

Maxime Chevalier-Boisvert discusses Higgs, a JavaScript JIT compiler written in D, and details the optimization technique of basic block versioning.

Higgs, a JIT compiler for JavaScript written in D, was presented at DConf 2013. Basic block versioning, a novel optimization technique in early stages of testing at the time, was also introduced. Experimental results demonstratring how basic block versioning fares on multiple metrics across a variety of benchmarks can now be shown. We discuss how we have interpreted these results to inform further development of Higgs and introduce a JIT compiler architecture based on the idea of lazy/incremental compilation and inlining. We also explore how D has influenced the development of Higgs and take a more in-depth look at how various D features such as templates and CTFE are used in the Higgs implementation.