Reengineering a complex application using a scalable data structure compiler

Abstract

P2 is a scalable compiler for collection data structures. High-level abstractions insulate P2 users from data structure implementation details. By specifying a target data structure as a composition of components from a reuse library, the P2 compiler replaces abstract operations with their concrete implementations.LEAPS is a production system compiler that produces the fastest sequential executables of OPS5 rule sets. LEAPS is a hand-written, highly-tuned, performance-driven application that relies on complex data structures. Reengineering LEAPS using P2 was an acid test to evaluate P2's scalability, productivity benefits, and generated code performance.In this paper, we present some of our experimental results and experience in this reengineering exercise. We show that P2 scaled to this complex application, substantially increased productivity, and provided unexpected performance gains.