A Tour of the Runtime Library
Why Mathematica Stack Exchange recommends it
Mathematica Stack Exchange users link it to explain recent changes to machine arithmetic, such as new underflow messages, and as a source on the new compiler and runtime.
Recommended by 1 people across 2 different months, 2017 to 2018.
What it is
A 2016 Wolfram technology conference talk by Mark Sofroniou on the Wolfram Language runtime library, the low-level layer being modernized for faster and more consistent machine arithmetic. It includes slides on topics such as machine underflow and ties into the next-generation Wolfram compiler.
What people said
Recommends ilian · 2018-03 · Mathematica Stack Exchange · on “Debug numerical error inside CompiledFunction”
Performance, efficiency, consistency and better arithmetic support for the new compiler. There are a couple of slides about machine underflow in this talk [this video] .
Recommends ilian · 2018-04 · Mathematica Stack Exchange · on “New General::munfl error and loss of precision”
@Valerio It is part of a larger effort to modernize and improve machine arithmetic for better performance, scalability and consistency. There are a few slides about machine underflow in this talk [this video] .
Cites P. Fonseca · 2017-01 · Mathematica Stack Exchange · on “SquaresR memory leak?”
That's it. Take a look at this [this video] I have also heard that they are touching the pattern matching artillery. A lot of this is for certainly motivated by the new compiler. I really hope that we will have this on M12 (that should be something like 2018...). This means that everything that is core is being cleaned up, and that everything we can compile within the RT scope will most likely get close to any other "natively" achievable performance and robustness...
Cites Szabolcs · 2017-03 · Mathematica Stack Exchange · on “Benchmarking: unexplained switching between high and low performance”
tl;dr I am trying to accurately benchmark some vectorized operations, and compare them between systems. But benchmarking is hard to do well, and I am getting inconsistent results: performance is switching, apparently randomly, between "slow" and "fast". Why? — Link to Woflram Community version. [LINK] Here is some code that benchmarks adding two packed arrays of size n , where n is just above a million. The timing is measured 5 times, to ensure consistency, then n is increased a bit, then the summation is timed again, etc. The whole benchmark is repeated twice. Table[ n = 1000000 + k; SeedRandom[120]; a = RandomReal[1, n]; b = RandomReal[1, n]; {k, Table[First@RepeatedTiming[a + b;], {5}]},
Cites MA- · 2018-05 · Mathematica Stack Exchange · on “What's the deal with next generation Wolfram compiler?”
Sources: Old Compiler (Rob Knapp Nov2011) [LINK] Computer Science in Mathematica (Abdul Dakkak Dec2014) [LINK] Compilation Technology (Tom Wickham-Jones, Abdul Dakkak & Steve Wilson Dec2015) [LINK] The Wolfram Compiler (Tom Wickham-Jones Feb2016) [LINK] The Next-Generation Wolfram Compiler (Tom Wickham-Jones Dec2016) [LINK] A Tour of the Runtime Library (Mark Sofroniou Dec2016) [this video] Wolfram Compiler Advances (Abdul Dakkak Feb2018) [LINK] Tech Talks - The Wolfram System Compiler (Tom Wickham-Jones Oct2018) [LINK] The New Runtime Library (Mark Sofroniou Dec2018) [LINK] Wolfram Compiler (Tom Wickham-Jones Dec2018) [LINK] Advanced Compilation Topics (Abdul Dakkak Dec2018) [LINK] New in 12 Web