Explicit Software Speculation for Dynamic Language Runtimes

84 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009.I demonstrate that explicit speculation improves the performance of dynamic language implementations on existing managed runtimes by speculatively executing dynamic language code with a common case interpretation of the language semantics. I implement a variety of optimizations at a high level, maintaining correct execution without requiring the sophisticated static analysis, language-specific runtime profiling infrastructure or potentially intricate, low-level recovery code that would be otherwise necessary. In addition, I explore how explicit speculation can guarantee speculative optimization correctness in an unmanaged dynamic language runtime by utilizing additional hardware support for fine-grain memory protection.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD