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Building the fastest Lua interpreter.. automatically

Published: 22 November 2022
Tags: compiler, lua

Haoran Xu discusses their research project to make writing VMs easier, using Lua as the language of choice for compilation.
Some highlights:

• The project's goal is to create a multi-tier method-based JIT compiler for Lua that is automatically generated at build time
• The project is still in its early stages, but the author has already achieved some impressive results
• The generated interpreter is the world's fastest Lua interpreter to date, outperforming LuaJIT's interpreter by 28% and the official Lua interpreter by 171% on average on a variety of tasks

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Retrofitting null-safety onto Java at Meta

Published: 22 November 2022
Tags: java

Artem Pianykh, Ilya Zorin, and Dmitry Lyubarskiy describe the development of a new static analysis tool called Nullsafe that is used to detect NullPointerException (NPE) errors in Java code.
Some highlights:

• The tool is designed to improve the null-safety of Java code by providing tools to express and check nullness invariants
• The tool has been integrated into the core developer workflow and has helped to significantly reduce the overall number of NPE errors and improve developers’ productivity
• Interoperability with legacy code and gradual deployment model were key to Nullsafe’s wide adoption in a multimillion-line codebase

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It's about time - Approaching Bitemporality (Part 1)

Published: 3 November 2022
Tags: database, sql

Tim Zöller explains different types of temporal databases, and how they are used to store information about time.
Some highlights:

• A bitemporal database utilizes two axes of time simultaneously, which enables us to query data in regard to both transaction time and valid time
• This type of database is useful for organizations that need to keep track of data changes over time, while also being able to reproduce documents from the past
• There are SQL examples for the implementation

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