Speaker: Simon Fowler, University of Edinburgh
Location: The Outhouse pub, Edinburgh, 7pm, 11th September 2018
Title: cmm_of_wasm: From WebAssembly to Native Code via the OCaml Backend
Abstract
WebAssembly is a low-level yet platform-independent language designed
to replace JavaScript as a compilation target for web applications.
WebAssembly has been billed as "Neither Assembly, nor just for the
Web", but the main production implementations are JIT compilers
implemented in web browsers. As the WebAssembly specification evolves
to incorporate new features such as garbage collection and threads,
and with plans to support more advanced features such as handlers for
algebraic effects on the horizon, it becomes important to prototype
new features without having to modify complex browser code.
In this talk, I will describe cmm_of_wasm, a feature-complete
ahead-of-time compiler which compiles WebAssembly to native code via
a translation to OCaml's CMM intermediate representation. I will give
a tutorial introduction to WebAssembly, discuss challenges which
arise both due to the design of WebAssembly and the choice of CMM as
a compilation target, and discuss a roadmap for future work.
More details: sites.google.com
Maybe attending: 1 person.
About EdLambda
EdLambda is an Edinburgh group for people interested in functional programming which has been running since September 2010. We meet in the Outhouse pub on the 2nd Tuesday of every month at 7pm. There is usually a talk on a subject of interest to functional programmers, followed by chat and drink! EdLambda meetups are free events and everyone is welcome.
The Outhouse pub
12A Broughton Street Lane
Edinburgh
EH1 3LY
