llvm dev - Oct 2016 - BoF: Shipping Software as LLVM IR (@Upcoming Dev Mtg)

Hi LLVM’ers!

We are hosting a BoF at this year's Dev Meeting on a subject we hope will
be of interest to some (many?) of you:
shipping software (entirely) as LLVM IR.

You can find our proposal in the meeting schedule online:

https://llvmdevelopersmeetingbay2016.sched.org/event/8Yzq/shipping-software-as-llvm-ir

The BoF is scheduled to last 45 minutes, which will go by very quickly!
To make the best use of the time, we'd like to get a head-start on some of
the discussions,
and get a feel for what topics people are most interested in discussing.
To start things off, here are a few suggestions for things to discuss.
Thoughts -- and suggestions for additional topics -- welcome.

* Do you ship software as IR today? What lessons have you learned?
* Challenges of shipping software as IR
* Representing software: Beyond a single module
* From build systems to LLVM IR: toolchains and more
* What would you do with a platform where everything was available as LLVM
IR?
* What tools or infrastructure would help make that happen?

(Some background to explain why we’re interested in this topic.)
ALLVM: We have a project in our group exploring the benefits of shipping
*all* software on a system as IR.  We are building a prototype ALLVM system
that makes it relatively easy to package and ship software in this way.
We are researching the benefits this could provide for performance and
for general software development.  We aim to make the ALLVM prototype
available in open source form to enable other groups to explore these goals.
Contact us off-list if you’d like to learn more about the ALLVM project.

~Will (and Vikram)
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Hi,

I think as soon as you want to have long-lived IR, the bitcode serialization is
a corner stone piece of the system.
Somehow related, I posted this recently to llvm-dev:
http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-September/105273.html
<http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-September/105273.html> ;
I’d be interested how we could leverage a better serialization for various
use-cases!

Best,

— 
Mehdi

> On Oct 14, 2016, at 11:32 AM, Will Dietz via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi LLVM’ers!
> 
> We are hosting a BoF at this year's Dev Meeting on a subject we hope
will be of interest to some (many?) of you:
> shipping software (entirely) as LLVM IR.
> 
> You can find our proposal in the meeting schedule online:
> 
>
https://llvmdevelopersmeetingbay2016.sched.org/event/8Yzq/shipping-software-as-llvm-ir
<https://llvmdevelopersmeetingbay2016.sched.org/event/8Yzq/shipping-software-as-llvm-ir>
> 
> The BoF is scheduled to last 45 minutes, which will go by very quickly!
> To make the best use of the time, we'd like to get a head-start on some
of the discussions,
> and get a feel for what topics people are most interested in discussing.
> To start things off, here are a few suggestions for things to discuss.
> Thoughts -- and suggestions for additional topics -- welcome.
> 
> * Do you ship software as IR today? What lessons have you learned?
> * Challenges of shipping software as IR
> * Representing software: Beyond a single module
> * From build systems to LLVM IR: toolchains and more
> * What would you do with a platform where everything was available as LLVM
IR?
> * What tools or infrastructure would help make that happen?
> 
> (Some background to explain why we’re interested in this topic.)
> ALLVM: We have a project in our group exploring the benefits of shipping
> *all* software on a system as IR.  We are building a prototype ALLVM system
> that makes it relatively easy to package and ship software in this way.
> We are researching the benefits this could provide for performance and
> for general software development.  We aim to make the ALLVM prototype
> available in open source form to enable other groups to explore these
goals.
> Contact us off-list if you’d like to learn more about the ALLVM project.
> 
> ~Will (and Vikram)
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
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On 14 October 2016 at 19:32, Will Dietz via llvm-dev
<llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> (Some background to explain why we’re interested in this topic.)
> ALLVM: We have a project in our group exploring the benefits of shipping
> *all* software on a system as IR.  We are building a prototype ALLVM system
> that makes it relatively easy to package and ship software in this way.
> We are researching the benefits this could provide for performance and
> for general software development.  We aim to make the ALLVM prototype
> available in open source form to enable other groups to explore these
goals.
> Contact us off-list if you’d like to learn more about the ALLVM project.
Hi Will, is the focus of this BoF on shipping current target-dependent
LLVM IR or does it also encompass proposals for a more target-agnostic
format such as that proposed on PNaCl (and perhaps you're proposing
something similar in allvm - I saw the hVISC poster in the PACT
proceedings)?

Thanks,

Alex

Hi Mehdi,

Yes, we did see your earlier post.  Efficient (de)serialization is definitely
important for both exporting (a la LTO and ThinLTO) and for shipping code as IR.
I expect most use cases of the latter would benefit.

-—Vikram

// Vikram S. Adve
// Professor, Department of Computer Science
// University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
// vadve at illinois.edu<mailto:vadve at illinois.edu>
// http://llvm.org


On Oct 14, 2016, at 2:41 PM, Mehdi Amini <mehdi.amini at
apple.com<mailto:mehdi.amini at apple.com>> wrote:

Hi,

I think as soon as you want to have long-lived IR, the bitcode serialization is
a corner stone piece of the system.
Somehow related, I posted this recently to llvm-dev:
http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-September/105273.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.llvm.org_pipermail_llvm-2Ddev_2016-2DSeptember_105273.html&d=DQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=b7uK7dJM4Fx7J_ehsuohEdD-6NdkoLyTwBFfHX-XKcc&m=2ty5V_F2rdMdBJPJVLuXAmeH-EXUvcMMe-ug_QqIqZA&s=byMygV6Z_7kXGJPWr5dD1wi0Gy13O7j0EXYEXDeW5Is&e=>
; I’d be interested how we could leverage a better serialization for various
use-cases!

Best,

—
Mehdi


On Oct 14, 2016, at 11:32 AM, Will Dietz via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:

Hi LLVM’ers!

We are hosting a BoF at this year's Dev Meeting on a subject we hope will be
of interest to some (many?) of you:
shipping software (entirely) as LLVM IR.

You can find our proposal in the meeting schedule online:

https://llvmdevelopersmeetingbay2016.sched.org/event/8Yzq/shipping-software-as-llvm-ir<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__llvmdevelopersmeetingbay2016.sched.org_event_8Yzq_shipping-2Dsoftware-2Das-2Dllvm-2Dir&d=DQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=b7uK7dJM4Fx7J_ehsuohEdD-6NdkoLyTwBFfHX-XKcc&m=2ty5V_F2rdMdBJPJVLuXAmeH-EXUvcMMe-ug_QqIqZA&s=f7oVXD0X8QKcnInXVH2m-a2ddcj04_t-Qnwbj8dUwmA&e=>

The BoF is scheduled to last 45 minutes, which will go by very quickly!
To make the best use of the time, we'd like to get a head-start on some of
the discussions,
and get a feel for what topics people are most interested in discussing.
To start things off, here are a few suggestions for things to discuss.
Thoughts -- and suggestions for additional topics -- welcome.

* Do you ship software as IR today? What lessons have you learned?
* Challenges of shipping software as IR
* Representing software: Beyond a single module
* From build systems to LLVM IR: toolchains and more
* What would you do with a platform where everything was available as LLVM IR?
* What tools or infrastructure would help make that happen?

(Some background to explain why we’re interested in this topic.)
ALLVM: We have a project in our group exploring the benefits of shipping
*all* software on a system as IR.  We are building a prototype ALLVM system
that makes it relatively easy to package and ship software in this way.
We are researching the benefits this could provide for performance and
for general software development.  We aim to make the ALLVM prototype
available in open source form to enable other groups to explore these goals.
Contact us off-list if you’d like to learn more about the ALLVM project.

~Will (and Vikram)
_______________________________________________
LLVM Developers mailing list
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev


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Hi Alex,
> On Oct 16, 2016, at 9:54 AM, Alex Bradbury <asb at asbradbury.org>
wrote:
> 
> On 14 October 2016 at 19:32, Will Dietz via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>> (Some background to explain why we’re interested in this topic.)
>> ALLVM: We have a project in our group exploring the benefits of
shipping
>> *all* software on a system as IR.  We are building a prototype ALLVM
system
>> that makes it relatively easy to package and ship software in this way.
>> We are researching the benefits this could provide for performance and
>> for general software development.  We aim to make the ALLVM prototype
>> available in open source form to enable other groups to explore these
goals.
>> Contact us off-list if you’d like to learn more about the ALLVM
project.
> 
> Hi Will, is the focus of this BoF on shipping current target-dependent
> LLVM IR or does it also encompass proposals for a more target-agnostic
> format such as that proposed on PNaCl (and perhaps you're proposing
> something similar in allvm - I saw the hVISC poster in the PACT
> proceedings)?

Both are very much relevant — different users will have different needs and we’d
like to include all of them in the discussion.  My personal opinion is that
while incremental improvements can and should be made (e.g., for better vector
ISA portability), any kind of general solution is a hard problem and different
systems will probably have to adopt fairly customized solutions, as PNaCl and
SPIR did, at least in the near future.

Since you mentioned it, the hVISC project (recently renamed HPVM) only addresses
portability for parallel systems (GPUs, vector hardware, multicore shared memory
multiprocessors), but not for  scalar code issues such as pointer sizes,
endianness, OS APIs, etc., which are also important for use cases like PNaCl and
SPIR.

-—Vikram

// Vikram S. Adve
// Professor, Department of Computer Science
// University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
// vadve at illinois.edu
// http://llvm.org
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Alex

Hey all!

Here are the slides I plan on using during tomorrow's BoF!

https://wdtz.org/files/allvm-bof-slides.pdf

In addition! We'll be taking advantage of http://slido.com after I saw
how useful it was during the git BoF :).

You can use this by visiting 'slido.com' and entering the code
"#ShipIR",
or using the following URL:

https://app.sli.do/event/nxp6ayku

We'll be using this to ensure the discussion addresses the questions/topics
that are of interest to the community, so please add your topics and vote on
what you'd like to discuss!

You can do this during the BoF as well :).

Thanks guys, see you tomorrow!

~Will

On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 1:32 PM, Will Dietz <wdietz2 at illinois.edu>
wrote:
> Hi LLVM’ers!
>
> We are hosting a BoF at this year's Dev Meeting on a subject we hope
will be
> of interest to some (many?) of you:
> shipping software (entirely) as LLVM IR.
>
> You can find our proposal in the meeting schedule online:
>
>
https://llvmdevelopersmeetingbay2016.sched.org/event/8Yzq/shipping-software-as-llvm-ir
>
> The BoF is scheduled to last 45 minutes, which will go by very quickly!
> To make the best use of the time, we'd like to get a head-start on some
of
> the discussions,
> and get a feel for what topics people are most interested in discussing.
> To start things off, here are a few suggestions for things to discuss.
> Thoughts -- and suggestions for additional topics -- welcome.
>
> * Do you ship software as IR today? What lessons have you learned?
> * Challenges of shipping software as IR
> * Representing software: Beyond a single module
> * From build systems to LLVM IR: toolchains and more
> * What would you do with a platform where everything was available as LLVM
> IR?
> * What tools or infrastructure would help make that happen?
>
> (Some background to explain why we’re interested in this topic.)
> ALLVM: We have a project in our group exploring the benefits of shipping
> *all* software on a system as IR.  We are building a prototype ALLVM system
> that makes it relatively easy to package and ship software in this way.
> We are researching the benefits this could provide for performance and
> for general software development.  We aim to make the ALLVM prototype
> available in open source form to enable other groups to explore these
goals.
> Contact us off-list if you’d like to learn more about the ALLVM project.
>
> ~Will (and Vikram)