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4217

A fork() in the road

The received wisdom suggests that Unix’s unusual combination of fork() and exec() for process creation was an inspired design. In this paper, we argue that fork was a clever hack for machines and programs of the 1970s that has long outlived its usefulness and is now a liability. We catalog the ways in which fork […]

4229

Compiler Performance and LLVM

I have always wanted the Cone compiler to be fast. Faster build times make it easier and more pleasant for the programmer to iterate and experiment quickly. Compilers built for speed, such as Turbo Pascal, D and Go, win praise and loyalty. Languages that struggle more with this, like C++ or Rust, get regular…