Asp should support incremental compilation

[shoaibkamil]

Right now, we have to write a single large source file and have that compiled; it would be better if we could write many small files (incrementally, perhaps) that are compiled into object files and then into a DLL. This way we would only recompile things if necessary.

O(1-2 weeks)

[chiaracoetzee]

My opinion: the best and simplest way to implement this (at least for now) is by generating multiple source files, generating a Makefile, and invoking GNU make to build. In future rebuilds, we compare the new generated files to the old ones, and if there is no difference, the file is not written and the last modified timestamp is not updated. This would allow make to figure out what needs rebuilding on its own. Has the benefit of using a dependency language familiar to many specializer developers.

[jwon]

Which files should I look at to implement this?

[chiaracoetzee]

A good place to start is asp/jit/asp_module.py, in the SpecializedFunction.call() method, which is invoked when a specialized function is called. It performs any necessary compilation and invokes the function. Look at methods it calls, in both Asp and CodePy. This may be involve needing functionality from CodePy that it doesn't supply, in which case we need to implement it on the Asp side instead.

[jwon]

Please track my progress here:
https://github.com/jwon/Incremental-Compilation-on-ASP