CS 4121/5121
Introduction to Compilers Practicum
Spring 2021

2021 CS 4121/5121 Compiler Bakeoff

The “Best Compiler” title gives each member of the winning team both bragging rights and an attractive plaque announcing their excellence in the compiler-writing domain. PA6 submissions will be treated as submissions to the contest; however, performance in the bakeoff does not affect course grades.

Criteria

Compilers are compared using the following criteria, listed roughly in order of importance:

Correctness of generated code and of compile-time error checking.
Speed of the generated code across a wide selection of benchmarks, including object-oriented benchmarks.
Length and clarity of the compiler implementation, and time required to compile the benchmark programs.

Benchmarks

Compilers are evaluated using several Xi programs, testing both language features and performance. These benchmarks test the performance of arrays, loops, recursion, redundant computations, and more.

Result

There were many excellent project submissions, and it was difficult even to narrow down the set to consider, let along pick one. The winning compiler for Spring 2021 is the one developed by the group of Vaishnavi Gupta, Felix Hohne, and Shiyuan Huang. Theirs was one of the most correct compilers, yet also generated some of the best quality code. Honorable mentions go to four other groups:

Scott Bass, Michael Tobin, and Michael Maitland. Their compiler does a good job of generating code that was both fast and correct.
Kaya Ito Alpturer, Ritwick Bhargava, Charles Sherk, and Andrey Yao. Their compiler includes impressive and effective optimizations.
Woocheol Hyun, Max Ren, and Alexander Xue. Their compiler does an outstanding job of generating correct code.
Winston Chen, Susan Garry, James Gooding, and Henry Sanchez. Their compiler generates good code and is highly correct, yet they wrote less than half as much code (in Java!) as most other groups.

Past Bakeoff Results and Winners