Embedding Foreign Code

Special purpose embedded languages facilitate generating high-performance code from purely functional high-level code; for example, we want to program highly parallel GPUs without the usual high barrier to entry and the time-consuming development process. We previously demonstrated the feasibility of a skeleton-based, generative approach to compiling such embedded languages. In this paper, we (a) describe our solution to some of the practical problems with skeleton-based code generation and (b) introduce our approach to enabling interoperability with native code. In particular, we show, in the context of a functional embedded language for GPU programming, how template meta programming simplifies code generation and optimisation. Furthermore, we present our design for a foreign function interface for an embedded language.

[1]  Mary Sheeran,et al.  Lava: hardware design in Haskell , 1998, ICFP '98.

[2]  William Thies,et al.  StreamIt: A Language for Streaming Applications , 2002, CC.

[3]  Yao Zhang,et al.  Scan primitives for GPU computing , 2007, GH '07.

[4]  Stephan Rafler,et al.  Generalization of Conway's "Game of Life" to a continuous domain - SmoothLife , 2011, 1111.1567.

[5]  Erik Perrins,et al.  Introducing Kansas Lava , 2009, IFL.

[6]  Murray Cole,et al.  Algorithmic Skeletons: Structured Management of Parallel Computation , 1989 .

[7]  Mary Sheeran,et al.  Obsidian: GPU Programming in Haskell , 2011 .

[8]  Geoffrey Mainland,et al.  Nikola: embedding compiled GPU functions in Haskell , 2010 .

[9]  Geoffrey Mainland.  Why it's nice to be quoted: quasiquoting for haskell , 2007, Haskell '07.

[10]  Steven G. Johnson,et al.  The Design and Implementation of FFTW3 , 2005, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[11]  Bo Joel Svensson,et al.  Obsidian: A Domain Specific Embedded Language for Parallel Programming of Graphics Processors , 2008, IFL.

[12]  Jack Dongarra,et al.  Special Issue on Program Generation, Optimization, and Platform Adaptation , 2005, Proc. IEEE.

[13]  Manuel M. T. Chakravarty,et al.  Accelerating Haskell array codes with multicore GPUs , 2011, DAMP '11.

[14]  Trevor L. McDonell.  Optimising purely functional GPU programs , 2013, ICFP.

[15]  Frédo Durand,et al.  Halide: a language and compiler for optimizing parallelism, locality, and recomputation in image processing pipelines , 2013, PLDI 2013.

[16]  Sean Lee,et al.  NOVA: A Functional Language for Data Parallelism , 2014, ARRAY@PLDI.

[17]  Bo Joel Svensson,et al.  Expressive array constructs in an embedded GPU kernel programming language , 2012, DAMP '12.

[18]  Kunle Olukotun,et al.  Optimizing data structures in high-level programs: new directions for extensible compilers based on staging , 2013, POPL.

[19]  Simon L. Peyton Jones,et al.  Template meta-programming for Haskell , 2002, Haskell '02.

[20]  J. Tukey,et al.  An algorithm for the machine calculation of complex Fourier series , 1965 .

[21]  Jack J. Purdum,et al.  C programming guide , 1983 .