llvm dev - Jul 2012 - [LLVMdev] Fortress project calls it quits due to lack of a decent VM

I thought this would be of interest to LLVM developers: The Fortress
project, which was an attempt to create a very advanced language with
implicit parallelism, parametric polymorphic types and many other cutting
edge language features, has announced that they are winding down the
project. What I found very interesting was that one of the reasons they
gave was the lack of a suitable execution environment:

"...over the last few years, as we have focused on implementing a compiler
targeted to the Java Virtual Machine, we encountered some severe technical
challenges having to do with the mismatch between the (rather ambitious)
Fortress type system and a virtual machine not designed to support it (that
would be every currently available VM, not just JVM). In addressing these
challenges, we learned a lot about the implications of the Fortress type
system for the implementation of symmetric multimethod dispatch, and have
concluded that we are now unlikely to learn more (in a research sense) from
completing the implementation of Fortress for JVM."


(Full article at
https://blogs.oracle.com/projectfortress/entry/fortress_wrapping_up)


This is particularly interesting to me, because in my own work on
experimental languages I've run into many of the same brick walls as they
have.

-- 
-- Talin
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One sort of questions why a company the size of Oracle, working with DARPA
funding, wouldn't have the resources to design the virtual machine they
required for the project...   although reading the article they never do *quite*
say that Fortress is being put down...       just that the research group is
winding down on it, the JVM target work isn't going to be completed, and the
current open source source code will remain open source.

-Gordon

From: llvmdev-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu [mailto:llvmdev-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu] On
Behalf Of Talin
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2012 1:57 PM
To: LLVM Developers Mailing List
Subject: [LLVMdev] Fortress project calls it quits due to lack of a decent VM

I thought this would be of interest to LLVM developers: The Fortress project,
which was an attempt to create a very advanced language with implicit
parallelism, parametric polymorphic types and many other cutting edge language
features, has announced that they are winding down the project. What I found
very interesting was that one of the reasons they gave was the lack of a
suitable execution environment:

"...over the last few years, as we have focused on implementing a compiler
targeted to the Java Virtual Machine, we encountered some severe technical
challenges having to do with the mismatch between the (rather ambitious)
Fortress type system and a virtual machine not designed to support it (that
would be every currently available VM, not just JVM). In addressing these
challenges, we learned a lot about the implications of the Fortress type system
for the implementation of symmetric multimethod dispatch, and have concluded
that we are now unlikely to learn more (in a research sense) from completing the
implementation of Fortress for JVM."

(Full article at
https://blogs.oracle.com/projectfortress/entry/fortress_wrapping_up)

This is particularly interesting to me, because in my own work on experimental
languages I've run into many of the same brick walls as they have.

--
-- Talin
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It's more likely that internal R&D funds are prioritized. Resources are
not infinite. For example, if fixing geospatial indexing in a
distributed cluster needs R&D money, it's more likely to get that
funding than a language with limited adoption prospects.

IIRC, Fortress and Chapel were both funded through the DARPA HPCS
program. HPCS wrapped up a few years ago now. So, the "working with
DARPA" part is only partially factual. I also seem to recall that
Fortress did not survive a down-select in the first phase of HPCS and
that Sun had to go it alone to continue the project.


-scooter

On 7/22/2012 11:22 PM, Gordon Keiser wrote:
>
> One sort of questions why a company the size of Oracle, working with
> DARPA funding, wouldn't have the resources to design the virtual
> machine they required for the project...   although reading the
> article they never do **quite** say that Fortress is being put
> down...       just that the research group is winding down on it, the
> JVM target work isn't going to be completed, and the current open
> source source code will remain open source.   
>
>  
>
> -Gordon
>
>  
>
> *From:*llvmdev-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu
> [mailto:llvmdev-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu] *On Behalf Of *Talin
> *Sent:* Saturday, July 21, 2012 1:57 PM
> *To:* LLVM Developers Mailing List
> *Subject:* [LLVMdev] Fortress project calls it quits due to lack of a
> decent VM
>
>  
>
> I thought this would be of interest to LLVM developers: The Fortress
> project, which was an attempt to create a very advanced language with
> implicit parallelism, parametric polymorphic types and many other
> cutting edge language features, has announced that they are winding
> down the project. What I found very interesting was that one of the
> reasons they gave was the lack of a suitable execution environment:
>
>  
>
>     "...over the last few years, as we have focused on implementing a
>     compiler targeted to the Java Virtual Machine, we encountered some
>     severe technical challenges having to do with the mismatch between
>     the (rather ambitious) Fortress type system and a virtual machine
>     not designed to support it (that would be every currently
>     available VM, not just JVM). In addressing these challenges, we
>     learned a lot about the implications of the Fortress type system
>     for the implementation of symmetric multimethod dispatch, and have
>     concluded that we are now unlikely to learn more (in a research
>     sense) from completing the implementation of Fortress for JVM."
>
>      
>
>     (Full article at
>     https://blogs.oracle.com/projectfortress/entry/fortress_wrapping_up)
>
>  
>
> This is particularly interesting to me, because in my own work on
> experimental languages I've run into many of the same brick walls as
> they have.
>
>  
>
> -- 
> -- Talin
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu         http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev
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On 23 July 2012 07:22, Gordon Keiser <gkeiser at arxan.com>
wrote:
> just that the research
> group is winding down on it, the JVM target work isn't going to be
> completed, and the current open source source code will remain open source.
Now, who will be crazy enough to continue a project (open source or
not) that has being tainted by Oracle?

-- 
cheers,
--renato

http://systemcall.org/