Erlang: Type-Based Optimizations in the JIT

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A new Erlang blog post/announcement has been posted!

This post explores the new type-based optimizations in Erlang/OTP 25 where the compiler embeds type information in the BEAM files to help the JIT (Just-In-Time compiler) to generate better code.

The best of both worlds

The SSA-based compiler passes introduced in OTP 22 does a sophisticated type analysis, which allows for more optimizations and better code generation. There are, however, limits to what kind of optimizations the Erlang compiler can do because a BEAM file must be possible to load on any BEAM machine running on a 32-bit or 64-bit computer. Therefore, the compiler cannot do optimizations that depend on the size of integers that fit in a machine word or on how Erlang terms are represented.

The JIT (introduced in OTP 24) knows that it is running on a 64-bit computer and knows how Erlang terms are rep...

Get the full details here: Type-Based Optimizations in the JIT - Erlang/OTP

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