Developing a Foundation for Code
Optimization
Mary Lou Soffa,University
of Pittsburgh, USA
Although optimization technology has been successful over the past 40
years, recent trends are emerging that demand we reconsider the
paradigm that we are using for code optimization. In particular, the
trends toward dynamic optimization, writing embedded system software in
high level languages and the lack of significant performance
improvement from current optimization research are forcing us to
rethink what we know and do not know about optimization. A number
of problems dealing with both semantic and application properties of
optimizations have always existed but have been mostly ignored.
The challenge in optimization today is to explore properties of
optimizations and develop a framework for better understanding and use
of optimizations. Fortunately, research is starting to explore
properties, including proving the soundness of optimizations, proving
the correctness of optimizations, specifications of optimizations, and
the predictability of profits of optimizations. Not only must we
understand the properties, but we also need to integrate the properties
into a framework. Only then can we address the problems of the
developing trends.