@phdthesis{Pape2021,
  author    = {Pape, Tobias},
  title     = {Efficient compound values in virtual machines},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-49913},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-499134},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xxix, 242},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Compound values are not universally supported in virtual machine (VM)-based programming systems and languages. However, providing data structures with value characteristics can be beneficial. On one hand, programming systems and languages can adequately represent physical quantities with compound values and avoid inconsistencies, for example, in representation of large numbers. On the other hand, just-in-time (JIT) compilers, which are often found in VMs, can rely on the fact that compound values are immutable, which is an important property in optimizing programs. Considering this, compound values have an optimization potential that can be put to use by implementing them in VMs in a way that is efficient in memory usage and execution time. Yet, optimized compound values in VMs face certain challenges: to maintain consistency, it should not be observable by the program whether compound values are represented in an optimized way by a VM; an optimization should take into account, that the usage of compound values can exhibit certain patterns at run-time; and that necessary value-incompatible properties due to implementation restrictions should be reduced. We propose a technique to detect and compress common patterns of compound value usage at run-time to improve memory usage and execution speed. Our approach identifies patterns of frequent compound value references and introduces abbreviated forms for them. Thus, it is possible to store multiple inter-referenced compound values in an inlined memory representation, reducing the overhead of metadata and object references. We extend our approach by a notion of limited mutability, using cells that act as barriers for our approach and provide a location for shared, mutable access with the possibility of type specialization. We devise an extension to our approach that allows us to express automatic unboxing of boxed primitive data types in terms of our initial technique. We show that our approach is versatile enough to express another optimization technique that relies on values, such as Booleans, that are unique throughout a programming system. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to re-use learned usage patterns and optimizations across program runs, thus reducing the performance impact of pattern recognition. We show in a best-case prototype that the implementation of our approach is feasible and can also be applied to general purpose programming systems, namely implementations of the Racket language and Squeak/Smalltalk. In several micro-benchmarks, we found that our approach can effectively reduce memory consumption and improve execution speed.},
  language  = {en}
}
@book{PapeTrefferHirschfeldetal.2013,
  author    = {Pape, Tobias and Treffer, Arian and Hirschfeld, Robert and Haupt, Michael},
  title     = {Extending a Java Virtual Machine to Dynamic Object-oriented Languages},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-266-7},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-67438},
  publisher      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {163},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {There are two common approaches to implement a virtual machine (VM) for a dynamic object-oriented language. On the one hand, it can be implemented in a C-like language for best performance and maximum control over the resulting executable. On the other hand, it can be implemented in a language such as Java that allows for higher-level abstractions. These abstractions, such as proper object-oriented modularization, automatic memory management, or interfaces, are missing in C-like languages but they can simplify the implementation of prevalent but complex concepts in VMs, such as garbage collectors (GCs) or just-in-time compilers (JITs). Yet, the implementation of a dynamic object-oriented language in Java eventually results in two VMs on top of each other (double stack), which impedes performance. For statically typed languages, the Maxine VM solves this problem; it is written in Java but can be executed without a Java virtual machine (JVM). However, it is currently not possible to execute dynamic object-oriented languages in Maxine. This work presents an approach to bringing object models and execution models of dynamic object-oriented languages to the Maxine VM and the application of this approach to Squeak/Smalltalk. The representation of objects in and the execution of dynamic object-oriented languages pose certain challenges to the Maxine VM that lacks certain variation points necessary to enable an effortless and straightforward implementation of dynamic object-oriented languages' execution models. The implementation of Squeak/Smalltalk in Maxine as a feasibility study is to unveil such missing variation points.},
  language  = {en}
}
@book{BeckmannHildebrandJascheketal.2019,
  author    = {Beckmann, Tom and Hildebrand, Justus and Jaschek, Corinna and Krebs, Eva and L{\"o}ser, Alexander and Taeumel, Marcel and Pape, Tobias and Fister, Lasse and Hirschfeld, Robert},
  title     = {The font engineering platform},
  number    = {128},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-464-7},
  issn      = {1613-5652},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-42748},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427487},
  publisher      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {viii, 115},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Creating fonts is a complex task that requires expert knowledge in a variety of domains. Often, this knowledge is not held by a single person, but spread across a number of domain experts. A central concept needed for designing fonts is the glyph, an elemental symbol representing a readable character. Required domains include designing glyph shapes, engineering rules to combine glyphs for complex scripts and checking legibility. This process is most often iterative and requires communication in all directions. This report outlines a platform that aims to enhance the means of communication, describes our prototyping process, discusses complex font rendering and editing in a live environment and an approach to generate code based on a user's live-edits.},
  language  = {en}
}
@book{ReschkeTaeumelPapeetal.2018,
  author    = {Reschke, Jakob and Taeumel, Marcel and Pape, Tobias and Niephaus, Fabio and Hirschfeld, Robert},
  title     = {Towards version control in object-based systems},
  volume    = {121},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-430-2},
  issn      = {1613-5652},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-410812},
  publisher      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {100},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Version control is a widely used practice among software developers. It reduces the risk of changing their software and allows them to manage different configurations and to collaborate with others more efficiently. This is amplified by code sharing platforms such as GitHub or Bitbucket. Most version control systems track files (e.g., Git, Mercurial, and Subversion do), but some programming environments do not operate on files, but on objects instead (many Smalltalk implementations do). Users of such environments want to use version control for their objects anyway. Specialized version control systems, such as the ones available for Smalltalk systems (e.g., ENVY/Developer and Monticello), focus on a small subset of objects that can be versioned. Most of these systems concentrate on the tracking of methods, classes, and configurations of these. Other user-defined and user-built objects are either not eligible for version control at all, tracking them involves complicated workarounds, or a fixed, domain-unspecific serialization format is used that does not equally suit all kinds of objects. Moreover, these version control systems that are specific to a programming environment require their own code sharing platforms; popular, well-established platforms for file-based version control systems cannot be used or adapter solutions need to be implemented and maintained. To improve the situation for version control of arbitrary objects, a framework for tracking, converting, and storing of objects is presented in this report. It allows editions of objects to be stored in an exchangeable, existing backend version control system. The platforms of the backend version control system can thus be reused. Users and objects have control over how objects are captured for the purpose of version control. Domain-specific requirements can be implemented. The storage format (i.e. the file format, when file-based backend version control systems are used) can also vary from one object to another. Different editions of objects can be compared and sets of changes can be applied to graphs of objects. A generic way for capturing and restoring that supports most kinds of objects is described. It models each object as a collection of slots. Thus, users can begin to track their objects without first having to implement version control supplements for their own kinds of objects. The proposed architecture is evaluated using a prototype implementation that can be used to track objects in Squeak/Smalltalk with Git. The prototype improves the suboptimal standing of user objects with respect to version control described above and also simplifies some version control tasks for classes and methods as well. It also raises new problems, which are discussed in this report as well.},
  language  = {en}
}
@book{WassermannFelgentreffPapeetal.2016,
  author    = {Wassermann, Lars and Felgentreff, Tim and Pape, Tobias and Bolz, Carl Friedrich and Hirschfeld, Robert},
  title     = {Tracing Algorithmic Primitives in RSqueak/VM},
  number    = {104},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-355-8},
  issn      = {1613-5652},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-91277},
  publisher      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {45},
  year      = {2016},
  abstract  = {When realizing a programming language as VM, implementing behavior as part of the VM, as primitive, usually results in reduced execution times. But supporting and developing primitive functions requires more effort than maintaining and using code in the hosted language since debugging is harder, and the turn-around times for VM parts are higher. Furthermore, source artifacts of primitive functions are seldom reused in new implementations of the same language. And if they are reused, the existing API usually is emulated, reducing the performance gains. Because of recent results in tracing dynamic compilation, the trade-off between performance and ease of implementation, reuse, and changeability might now be decided adversely. In this work, we investigate the trade-offs when creating primitives, and in particular how large a difference remains between primitive and hosted function run times in VMs with tracing just-in-time compiler. To that end, we implemented the algorithmic primitive BitBlt three times for RSqueak/VM. RSqueak/VM is a Smalltalk VM utilizing the PyPy RPython toolchain. We compare primitive implementations in C, RPython, and Smalltalk, showing that due to the tracing just-in-time compiler, the performance gap has lessened by one magnitude to one magnitude.},
  language  = {en}
}