Interpreters, compilation, concurrency, and debugging tools.

Linz, Austria
Joined June 2008
Stefan Marr retweeted
Oh no I ran out of space on the ice40up5k. It's a fairly small FPGA. A tiny computer (even a virtual one) isn't much fun without USB and video output. Had to remove the BTB again. Still, the other progress has been pretty good.
Once I lengthened the pipeline I started wanting some branch prediction (of conditional branches) and some branch target prediction (for virtual C++ calls and interpreter loops). I actually managed to fit both in without breaking the LUT limit on this small FPGA.
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Stefan Marr retweeted
Once I lengthened the pipeline I started wanting some branch prediction (of conditional branches) and some branch target prediction (for virtual C++ calls and interpreter loops). I actually managed to fit both in without breaking the LUT limit on this small FPGA.
Replying to @erikcorry
Is it cheating to lengthen the pipeline of the CPU and make loads and stores faster, just so your Smalltalk VM goes faster? No, it isn't!
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Stefan Marr retweeted
My Smalltalk (SOMpp fork) on Fructus is getting faster. < 4m cycles for my cut down DeltaBlue benchmark for the first time!
Fructus has a nice instruction set reference now!
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Stefan Marr retweeted
Ahead-of-time Compilation of JavaScript to WebAssembly via Static Type Inference vimeo.com/1234257957 cfallin.org/pubs/vmil2026_ni… Chris Fallin (mastodon.world/@cfallin/1174…) @VMIL_Workshop 2026 (at @splashcon 2026)
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Stefan Marr retweeted
I've been playing with making my own 16 bit CPU with its own instruction set. I call it Fructus because all computers were fruit-named when I was young. Right now I'm implementing integer division, and I'm doing it with an instruction I haven't seen as the primary insn.
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I abused my position of power today to teach students that dynamically typed languages don't generally do type checks at run time.
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Stefan Marr retweeted
My team is hiring! We develop the Verse programming language and related tech at Epic. See thread for more details about what we work on and how you can apply. I'll also be at REBASE this week in Oakland if you want to come have a chat in person.
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There was a time where colleagues suggested that only code has value. I am glad, we are back at a point where explaining things is valuable again.
Ever heard of dynamic meta-compilation? Truffle uses partial evaluation to turn interpreters into optimized machine code without requiring you to write a compiler. We’ve added docs explaining how it works. Readable by humans, too: github.com/oracle/graal/blob…
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Stefan Marr retweeted
Ever heard of dynamic meta-compilation? Truffle uses partial evaluation to turn interpreters into optimized machine code without requiring you to write a compiler. We’ve added docs explaining how it works. Readable by humans, too: github.com/oracle/graal/blob…
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Stefan Marr retweeted
Brief weekend reading on another benchmarking pitfall: The Limitations of Running a Workload Generator In the Same JVM as the System-Under-Test norlinder.nu/posts/The-Limit… Spoiler: the GC may conspire against you and your data collection!
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Brief weekend reading on another benchmarking pitfall: The Limitations of Running a Workload Generator In the Same JVM as the System-Under-Test norlinder.nu/posts/The-Limit… Spoiler: the GC may conspire against you and your data collection!
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They tell me to stay on top of this technology. Alright, but... "my research subagent went beyond its assigned scope, edited the file and made git commits itself, despite being instructed to only research and report."... it's broken by design. Why'd you give it the capability?
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LLM-use in academic writing is like guns in the US.
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Charles University has a new funding scheme! If you are international researcher who wants to join us in Prague (3-12 years after PhD), consider applying: cuni.cz/UKEN-2541.html The deadline (9 Nov) is tight, but it's a new thing. Happy to help anyone with shared interests!
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It was amusing to read that the current "AI makes lectures irrelevant" debate has echos from 1781 as related by Boswell.
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I thought, I had broken the iteration-time foldout of ReBenchDB. Turns out, it was just terribly slow. Scanning through a 2GB data table on a slow disk takes a while. Fix the primary key order, i.e., the relevant index, and instead of waiting 42sec, it shows in 34ms.
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AirQo from Makerere University, Uganda has been named a 2026 @EarthshotPrize Finalist in the Clean Our Air category. Huge thanks to our partners and community who make our work possible! @AirQoProject @Makerere @MakCoCIS
Meet the 2026 finalists for the @EarthshotPrize, the world’s most prestigious award for climate action with real impact. Read more here: time.com/article/2026/09/18/…
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Stefan Marr retweeted
Here are the slides for my talk "Running Native Extensions and Ruby Code in Parallel Threads" at #EuRuKo 2026: eregon.me/blog/assets/resear…
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Stefan Marr retweeted
I'm looking for my next role, in Montreal or remote! My background spans compilers, systems, and AI research. I'd welcome introductions, leads, or a repost to help spread the word ❤️ More details about my experience and what I'm looking for: pointersgonewild.com/2026-09…
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