Fb has labored on varied programming language improvements over time from all their work on HHVM at a time when PHP was sluggish to engaged on a super fast C/C++ pre-processor to different open-source language work. Their newest work on this space is on supporting just-in-time compilation of C++ code to deal with it like a scripting language.
It seems Fb is already utilizing JIT’ed C++ code in manufacturing as their very own “environment friendly scripting framework” for coping with their HTTP request dealing with logic of their L7 reverse proxies. Their C++ scripts are compiled/linked/executed at run-time and constructed off the LLVM/Clang infrastructure.
Over different scripting languages, they turned to creating this C++ script with the intention to supply higher debugging, profiling, and in the end run-time efficiency in comparison with different scripting languages. However, sure, there may be the slight improve in preliminary start-up time however the precise run-time efficiency seems to be assembly their wants.
Fb engineers say their C++ scripting framework was sooner than one other beforehand used scripting language by 4 instances. This is not straight-up unmodified C++ sources they’re JIT’ing however are relying upon pre-compiled headers and different adjustments to go well with their workflow/necessities.
LLVM/Clang does the heavy lifting however sadly this C++ scripting framework does not seem like open-source at the least not but. Fb engineers briefly offered on this work throughout this month’s EuroLLVM convention in Brussels.
