Collaborative Research: CSR: Core: Medium: Scaling Unix/Linux Shell Programs

协作研究：CSR：核心：中：扩展 Unix/Linux Shell 程序

• 批准号: 2312346
• 负责人: Nikos Vasilakis
• 金额: $ 59.96万
• 依托单位: Brown University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2027-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2312346&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; CSR; Core; Medium

The ‘shell’ is the glue that holds modern computer systems together: It is the programming language that connects components and manages systems; it is the quick-and-dirty language for writing scientific workflows and data analysis; it is the control hatch that offers skilled users direct access to their computer's inner-workings. Shell programming remains ubiquitous —steadily in the top 10 most popular programming languages— partly because it allows non-expert developers to combine components available in any programming language with little-to-no understanding of their internals. Unfortunately, this black-box, language-agnostic composition hinders automated acceleration of shell programs. This project will develop techniques to accelerate shell programs without requiring input from shell programmers and little-to-no input from the authors of individual components. This work's approach (1) builds on the real-world success of prior research by the PIs (that requires more user input), (2) brings together expertise in several subfields of computer science —parallel and distributed systems, programming languages, and formal methods— and (3) offers synergy. The individual techniques each offer significant benefits, but yield a transformative whole.By enabling practical, push-button enhancement of a real-world, pervasively-used programming language, the proposed work promises to significantly accelerate existing and new shell programs without any effort from their developers, without any changes to existing infrastructure, and while maintaining compatibility with prior results. The shell's ubiquity means these speedups will have broad impact, especially in disciplines that use computing as a tool to solve problems in their respective fields, e.g., bioinformatics, data science, and economics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

“外壳”是将现代计算机系统结合在一起的粘合剂：它是连接组件和管理系统的编程语言；它是编写科学工作流程和数据分析的快速而简单的语言；它是提供控制的窗口；熟练的用户可以直接访问计算机的内部工作原理，Shell 编程仍然无处不在，一直稳居最流行的 10 种编程语言之列，部分原因是它允许非专业开发人员在几乎不了解任何编程语言的情况下组合可用的组件。他们的不幸的是，这种与语言无关的黑盒组合阻碍了 shell 程序的自动加速，该项目将开发加速 shell 程序的技术，而无需 shell 程序员的输入，也不需要各个组件的作者的输入。方法 (1) 建立在 PI 先前研究的现实成功基础上（需要更多用户输入），(2) 汇集了计算机科学多个子领域的专业知识——并行和分布式系统、编程语言和形式化方法——和（3）各个技术都提供了显着的好处，但产生了一个变革性的整体。通过实现现实世界中普遍使用的编程语言的实用、按钮式增强，所提议的工作有望显着加速现有和新的 shell 程序，而无需开发人员的任何努力，无需对现有基础设施进行任何更改，同时保持与先前结果的兼容性，这意味着这些加速将产生广泛的影响，特别是在使用计算作为解决各自领域问题的工具的学科中。 ,该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。