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Dataflow Analyses and Compiler Optimizations That Use Them, for Free
can be improved over time, but this is a slow process. “Proebsting’s Law” is an old joke which suggested that advances in compiler optimization will double the speed of a computation every 18 years — but if anything this is optimistic.
Slow compiler evolution is never a good thing, but this is particularly problematic in today’s environment of rapid innovation in GPUs, TPUs, and other entertaining platforms. Taking humans out of the compiler-improvement loop will make this process orders of magnitude faster, and also the resulting compilers will tend to be correct by construction. Another is generalization, which takes a specific optimization (perhaps, but not necessarily, discovered by a superoptimizer) and turns it into a broadly applicable form that is suitable for inclusion in a production compiler.
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