A pragmatic approach to the analysis and compilation of lazy functional languages

The aim of the FAST Project is to provide an implementation of a functional language, Haskell, on a transputer array. An important component of the system is a highly optimising compiler for Haskell to a single transputer. This paper presents a methodology for describing the optimisations and code generation for such a compiler, which allows the exploitation of many standard and some new techniques in a clear and concise notation. Results are included showing that the optimisations give significant improvement over the standard combinator and (Johnsson's 1984) G-machine implementations. 1 Introduction The FAST (Functional programming for ArrayS of Transputers) Project, funded by the UK government, is a collaboration between the University of Southampton, Imperial College, London and Meiko Ltd. of Bristol. The aim is to provide an implementation of a pure, lazy, functional language such as Haskell [12] on transputer arrays. The methodology for distribution is a variant of the process ...