Mark Leone: Research and Publications

My primary research interest is run-time code generation (RTCG). I developed a method of using compile-time specialization to reduce the cost of RTCG by an order of magnitude. As a proof of concept, I implemented a compiler for a subset of Standard ML, called Fabius, that automatically creates programs that generate native code at run time with extremely low overhead (approximately six cycles per generated instruction). This led to significant speedups in a wide variety of programs. For example, the BSD packet filter interpreter, which the BSD kernel uses for fast selection of network packets on behalf of user processes, runs nearly 40% faster on typical inputs when translated from C to ML and compiled by Fabius.

My broader research interests include programming languages, compilation, program analysis and optimization, specialization, type theory, and the application of advanced programming languages to real-world problems.

Selected Publications

Optimizing ML with Run-Time Code Generation. Peter Lee and Mark Leone. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN '96 Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, pp. 137-148, Philadelphia, May 1996. [abstract]

Dynamic Specialization in the Fabius System. Mark Leone and Peter Lee. In ACM Computing Surveys 1998 Symposium on Partial Evaluation, Vol. 30, No. 3es. [abstract]

Multi-Stage Specialization with Relative Binding Times Mark Leone and Peter Lee. Technical Report #497, Computer Science Department, Indiana University, November 1997. [abstract]

Dynamo: A Staged Compiler Architecture for Dynamic Program Optimization. Mark Leone and R. Kent Dybvig. Technical Report #490, Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, September 1997. [abstract]

A Declarative Approach to Run-Time Code Generation. Mark Leone and Peter Lee. In Workshop Record of WCSSS'96: The Inaugural Workshop on Compiler Support for System Software, pp. 8-17, Tucson, February 1996. [abstract]

Lightweight Run-Time Code Generation. Mark Leone and Peter Lee. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Partial Evaluation and Semantics-Based Program Manipulation, pages 97-106, June 1994. [abstract]

mleone@cs.indiana.edu