CS 6120: Advanced Compilers: The Self-Guided Online Course (2020)

The section on dynamic compilers is more or less all about trace compilation. Generally, trace compilation is a dead end and has been abandoned repeatedly. The more important concepts here are type feedback and speculation and deoptimization, as well as making fast compilers and tiering.

The course overall looks good, and it's great that so much is available online, so well done, Adrian.

Previously...

CS 6120: Advanced Compilers: The Self-Guided Online Course - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39577878 - March 2024 (102 comments)

Advanced Compilers: Self-Guided Online Course - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35130975 - March 2023 (82 comments)

Advanced Compilers: Self-Guided Online Course - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25386756 - Dec 2020 (232 comments)

I'm a bit confused about what makes this course "advanced." Most of the topics (dead code elimination, data flow, dominator analysis, SSA form) seem like they belong in a first course on compilers.

Are there any other self-guided online university level CS courses like this?

How does this compare to Nora Sandler's "Writing a C compiler" in terms of the potential gains for the reader?

Is there also a self guided course for "basic compilers", before stepping into an advanced level?

Thanks for creating and sharing this.

Saw a podcast that talked about the rust compiler, which apparently included machine learning algorithms at some points to determine whether or not you had code that could crash your system

I'm super curious what alexia massalin is up to these days, besides collecting microunity patent royalties

Great material! Thank you.

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