ITR: FLINT---A Mobile-Code Infrastructure for Advanced Languages

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Abstract

Platform-Independent Computing, as popularized by Java, is a key technology for developing and executing next generation software on distributed and heterogeneous computing platforms. The current state-of-the-art mobile-code system is built around the Java Virtual Machine Language (JVML). Unfortunately, JVML does not support other programming languages well and is notoriously inefficient, complex, and hard to extend. This research focuses on developing a new mobile-code infrastructure that eliminates all of these weaknesses. The infrastructure will be based on the FLINT typed common intermediate format (also developed by the PI) and will provide support to multiple programming languages such as Java, ML, and C. The research will investigate new techniques on building certifying compiler, smaller virtual machine, and more extensible runtime system for compiling and running the FLINT mobile code. The resulting infrastructure will be made publicly available to support other cutting-edge research on proof-carrying code and secure internet programming.