[hcoop/debian/mlton.git] / doc / guide / localhost / History

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<a href="./Home">MLton 20180207</a>\r
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<h1>History</h1>\r
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<div id="preamble">\r
<div class="sectionbody">\r
<div class="paragraph"><p>In April 1997, Stephen Weeks wrote a defunctorizer for Standard ML and\r
integrated it with SML/NJ.  The defunctorizer used SML/NJ&#8217;s visible\r
compiler and operated on the <span class="monospaced">Ast</span> intermediate representation\r
produced by the SML/NJ front end.  Experiments showed that\r
defunctorization gave a speedup of up to six times over separate\r
compilation and up to two times over batch compilation without functor\r
expansion.</p></div>\r
<div class="paragraph"><p>In August 1997, we began development of an independent compiler for\r
SML.  At the time the compiler was called <span class="monospaced">smlc</span>.  By October, we had\r
a working monomorphiser.  By November, we added a polyvariant\r
higher-order control-flow analysis.  At that point, MLton was about\r
10,000 lines of code.</p></div>\r
<div class="paragraph"><p>Over the next year and half, <span class="monospaced">smlc</span> morphed into a full-fledged\r
compiler for SML.  It was renamed MLton, and first released in March\r
1999.</p></div>\r
<div class="paragraph"><p>From the start, MLton has been driven by whole-program optimization\r
and an emphasis on performance.  Also from the start, MLton has had a\r
fast C FFI and <span class="monospaced">IntInf</span> based on the GNU multiprecision library.  At\r
its first release, MLton was 48,006 lines.</p></div>\r
<div class="paragraph"><p>Between the March 1999 and January 2002, MLton grew to 102,541 lines,\r
as we added a native code generator, mllex, mlyacc, a profiler, many\r
optimizations, and many libraries including threads and signal\r
handling.</p></div>\r
<div class="paragraph"><p>During 2002, MLton grew to 112,204 lines and we had releases in April\r
and September.  We added support for cross compilation and used this\r
to enable MLton to run on Cygwin/Windows and FreeBSD.  We also made\r
improvements to the garbage collector, so that it now works with large\r
arrays and up to 4G of memory and so that it automatically uses\r
copying, mark-compact, or generational collection depending on heap\r
usage and RAM size.  We also continued improvements to the optimizer\r
and libraries.</p></div>\r
<div class="paragraph"><p>During 2003, MLton grew to 122,299 lines and we had releases in March\r
and July.  We extended the profiler to support source-level profiling\r
of time and allocation and to display call graphs.  We completed the\r
Basis Library implementation, and added new MLton-specific libraries\r
for weak pointers and finalization.  We extended the FFI to allow\r
callbacks from C to SML.  We added support for the Sparc/Solaris\r
platform, and made many improvements to the C code generator.</p></div>\r
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	22	<a href="./Home">MLton 20180207</a>\r
	23	</div>\r
	24	</div>\r
	25	<div id="header">\r
	26	<h1>History</h1>\r
	27	</div>\r
	28	<div id="content">\r
	29	<div id="preamble">\r
	30	<div class="sectionbody">\r
	31	<div class="paragraph"><p>In April 1997, Stephen Weeks wrote a defunctorizer for Standard ML and\r
	32	integrated it with SML/NJ. The defunctorizer used SML/NJ’s visible\r
	33	compiler and operated on the <span class="monospaced">Ast</span> intermediate representation\r
	34	produced by the SML/NJ front end. Experiments showed that\r
	35	defunctorization gave a speedup of up to six times over separate\r
	36	compilation and up to two times over batch compilation without functor\r
	37	expansion.</p></div>\r
	38	<div class="paragraph"><p>In August 1997, we began development of an independent compiler for\r
	39	SML. At the time the compiler was called <span class="monospaced">smlc</span>. By October, we had\r
	40	a working monomorphiser. By November, we added a polyvariant\r
	41	higher-order control-flow analysis. At that point, MLton was about\r
	42	10,000 lines of code.</p></div>\r
	43	<div class="paragraph"><p>Over the next year and half, <span class="monospaced">smlc</span> morphed into a full-fledged\r
	44	compiler for SML. It was renamed MLton, and first released in March\r
	45	1999.</p></div>\r
	46	<div class="paragraph"><p>From the start, MLton has been driven by whole-program optimization\r
	47	and an emphasis on performance. Also from the start, MLton has had a\r
	48	fast C FFI and <span class="monospaced">IntInf</span> based on the GNU multiprecision library. At\r
	49	its first release, MLton was 48,006 lines.</p></div>\r
	50	<div class="paragraph"><p>Between the March 1999 and January 2002, MLton grew to 102,541 lines,\r
	51	as we added a native code generator, mllex, mlyacc, a profiler, many\r
	52	optimizations, and many libraries including threads and signal\r
	53	handling.</p></div>\r
	54	<div class="paragraph"><p>During 2002, MLton grew to 112,204 lines and we had releases in April\r
	55	and September. We added support for cross compilation and used this\r
	56	to enable MLton to run on Cygwin/Windows and FreeBSD. We also made\r
	57	improvements to the garbage collector, so that it now works with large\r
	58	arrays and up to 4G of memory and so that it automatically uses\r
	59	copying, mark-compact, or generational collection depending on heap\r
	60	usage and RAM size. We also continued improvements to the optimizer\r
	61	and libraries.</p></div>\r
	62	<div class="paragraph"><p>During 2003, MLton grew to 122,299 lines and we had releases in March\r
	63	and July. We extended the profiler to support source-level profiling\r
	64	of time and allocation and to display call graphs. We completed the\r
65	Basis Library implementation, and added new MLton-specific libraries\r
66	for weak pointers and finalization. We extended the FFI to allow\r
67	callbacks from C to SML. We added support for the Sparc/Solaris\r
68	platform, and made many improvements to the C code generator.</p></div>\r
69	</div>\r
70	</div>\r
71	</div>\r
72	<div id="footnotes"><hr></div>\r
73	<div id="footer">\r
74	<div id="footer-text">\r
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