Experience Report: Building Shin - A Typed Functional Compiler For Computational Linear Algebra Problems.

location_city Bengaluru schedule Dec 15th 10:45 - 11:30 AM IST place Crystal 1 people 20 Interested

Abstract: I wrote a distributed (mostly) Functional Compiler in Scheme, OCaml and Elixir that incorporates knowledge of Computational Linear Algebra and domain specific knowledge to generate highly optimized linear algebra code from specification of problems. This talk is about lessons learned in the process.

The problem:
In every domain that uses computational linear algebra (which is all of engineering and science), we encounter the 'how to optimize a linear algebra expression into an optimized sequence of BLAS (or LAPACK or $linear_algera library) kernel calls' problem.

Example: (if the math equations make you want to tear your hair out and go jump off a cliff, don't worry, it is just an example, you don't have to grok it. Just skim the equations The basic problem being addressed here is that solving such equations with code takes up a lot of effort and time from experts in computational linear algebra)


Here is a linear algebra expression from a genetics problem , specifically GWAS -Genome Wide Association Studies, looking for significant associations for millions of genetic markers- where the essence of the problem [1] comes down to generating the most efficient algorithm possible that solves these equations

This in turn involves solving a 2 dimensional sequence of Generalized Least Squared Problems of the form

The algorithms to solve these can be directly coded up in Matlab or Julia. But there are problems with this approach, with this specific problem.


1. For different input sizes, different algorithms give the most optimal performance. Which algorithm do you code up?


2. Even for a given input size, there are multiple algorithms that compute the same result, but have differing computational characteristics depending on the hardware etc. How do you generate the optimal algorithm for your hardware ?


3. Most importantly the structure of *this* specific problem allows optimizations that are specific to the problem which are not built into generic linear algebra routines. (Obviously, one can't expect MATLAB to incorporate problem specific information for every scientific/engineering problem ever). The GLS problems are connected to others, thus saving intermediate results can save hours of computation vs calculating every GLS problem from scratch

In practice, one needs to be an expert in Computational Linear Algebra to come up with the optimized algorithm for a domain specific problem, and then write (say Fortran) code to use BLAS, LAPACK etc optimally to actualize this algorithm, often with much iteration, often consuming 100s of hours.

The Solution:


Incorporating this 'expert knowledge' into a compiler speeds up the time taken to arrive at the best solution (often by a factor of 100 or 1000), and allows Computational Linear Algebra experts to do more interesting things, like focus on their research.

For this particular problem, the above equations, and additional knowledge of the problem domain are the input into an expression compiler. The output is highly efficient and 'proved correct' code

In compiler terms, incorporating domain knowldege into the compilation process results in being able to apply optimizations to the generated Syntax Trees/Graphs, resulting in optimal algorithms. (note: the output of the compiler is a program in another language- say Matlab).

In essence, "Domain Specific Compilers" consume knowledge about the structure of a problem and generate optimized code that solves that problem.

Shin is one such compiler. It consumes a problem description and outputs highly efficient Julia code that solves the problem.

This talk focuses on the engineering challenges I faced in building this compiler, with a special focus on the approaches that failed [5]

Trivia:

"Shin" is the Hebrew letter, not the English word meaning 'front of the leg between knee and ankle' ;-).

Every company uses names from a common theme to name their servers and components - Athena, Zeus, Hercules , or Thor, Loki, Odin, or Jedi, Sith, Skywalker etc. We use Hebrew words, so we have Ruach, Melekh, Malkuth etc..

 
 

Outline/Structure of the Talk

(This is tentative and will probably change before the conf)

1. The Problem of Computing with Linear Algebra Expressions

2. Solving the problem with building Domain Knowledge into the compilation process

3. Existing Solutions

4. Solving with Functional Programming.

5. Iteration 1 - Prototyping with Scheme. Macros vs Types. Choose One.

6. Iteration 2 - Addressing the ' all lisp programs eventually need types" problem. Transitioning from Scheme to ML.

6. Iteration 3 - Addressing the "all programs eventually need to scale" problem. Enter Elixir.

7. Iteration 4. Julia as target language (vs C/Fortran). Challenges and Opportunities.

8. Successes - What worked.

9. Failures and Lessons Learned - What didn't work and why

10. What remains to be done. Future work

Learning Outcome

- Understanding a deep *problem* in Computational Linear Algebra. (Understanding a problem pays more dividends over the long term than understanding specific solutions)

- Understanding the challenges of building an production grade (vs toy) compiler, and integrating into an industrial (vs academic) product pipeline

- The joys and sorrows of using Scheme, OCaml and Elixir to build compilers. How to (attempt to) combine the strengths of each. The costs of such an approach.

- (Time permitting) Interesting subproblems in computation graph processing, tree pattern matching algorithms, symbolic computing, formally specifying [6] compiler sub components etc

Target Audience

Anyone interested in Linear Algebra, Compilers, or FP

Prerequisites for Attendees

A few years of programming experience (not necessarily in FP)

If you have built a compiler, or work in a domain where Computational Linear Algebra is important, you'll appreciate some of the nuances in more depth than if you don't, but I'll be presenting all necessary background.

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