A dynamic compiler for Scheme
Mark Alexander Hugh Emberson · UC Research Repository (University of Canterbury) · 1995
Traditionally, dynamically-typed languages have been difficult to compile efficiently. This thesis explores dynamic compilation, a recently developed technique for compiling dynamically-typed languages. A dynamic compiler compiles and optimizes programs as they execute, using information collected from the running program to perform optimizations that are impossible to perform in a conventional batch compiler. To explore these techniques we developed SKI, a dynamic compiler for Scheme. Tests on programs compiled by SKI, have shown that dynamic compilation techniques can give a substantial increase in the performance Scheme programs. In some cases they can increase performance by up to 400%.