vast VS exo

Most languages target C or LLVM, and C and LLVM have a fundamentally lossy compilation processes.

To get around this, you'd need a hodge podge of pre compiler directives, or take a completely different approach.

I found a cool project that uses a "Tower of IRs" that can restablish source to binary provenance, which, seems to me, to be on the right track:

https://github.com/trailofbits/vast

I'd definitely like to see the compilation processes be more transparent and easy to work with.

At Trail of Bits, we are creating a new compiler front/middle end for Clang called VAST [1]. It consumes Clang ASTs and creates a high-level, information-rich MLIR dialect. Then, we progressively lower it through various other dialects, eventually down to the LLVM dialect in MLIR, which can be translated directly to MLIR.

Our goals with this pipeline are to enable static analyses that can choose the right abstraction level(s) for their goals, and using provenance, cross abstraction levels to relate results back to source code.

Neither Clang ASTs nor LLVM IR alone meet our needs for static analysis. Clang ASTs are too verbose and lack explicit representations for implicit behaviours in C++. LLVM IR isn't really "one IR," it's a two IRs (LLVM proper, and metadata), where LLVM proper is an unspecified family of dialects (-O0, -O1, -O2, -O3, then all the arch-specific stuff). LLVM IR also isn't easy to relate to source, even in the presence of maximal debug information. The Clang codegen process does ABI-specific lowering takes high-level types/values and transforms them to be more amenable to storing in target-cpu locations (e.g. registers). This actively works against relating information across levels; something that we want to solve with intermediate MLIR dialects.

Beyond our static analysis goals, I think an MLIR-based setup will be a key enabler of library-aware compiler optimizations. Right now, library-aware optimizations are challenging because Clang ASTs are hard to mutate, and by the time things are in LLVM IR, the abstraction boundaries provided by libraries are broken down by optimizations (e.g. inlining, specialization, folding), forcing optimization passes to reckon with the mechanics of how libraries are implemented.

We're very excited about MLIR, and we're pushing full steam ahead with VAST. MLIR is a technology that we can use to fix a lot of issues in Clang/LLVM that hinder really good static analysis.

[1] https://github.com/trailofbits/vast

SEEKING FREELANCER | REMOTE | Designer

Looking for a UX designer who has exposure to DevOps/Cloud/Programming.

Building numerous new features for https://exo.deref.io and need someone to help wireframe, flesh out the UX, and design high-fidelity screens for implementation.

The ideal candidate for this project is someone who has dabbled in engineering and devops, but is primarily a designer. Also a good fit would be those who have experience designing cloud/devops/eng products in the past.

CSS/HTML implementation skills a big plus, but not strictly required.

Contact [email protected] with a statement of interest, your rates, and a link to your portfolio or other evidence of relevant experience. Thanks!

We're working on something like this at Deref: https://exo.deref.io/ - The version of our Exo tool that is out there now is a local process & docker container orchestrator with log viewer etc. We're working on adding support for a rich set of component types like functions, queues, workflows, cron jobs, etc. Everything would have a nice console GUI, so you don't need to be an expert at infrastructure-as-code, yet you'd get a version-controlled manifest file that you can use for reproducible deployments. We plan to support deployment to your own infrastructure or an eventual PaaS platform.

If folks are interested in working on something like this, my email address is in my profile. Don't hesitate to reach out.

Deref | Software Engineer | Remote USA | Full-Time

Looking for engineers with Cloud experience and a passion for UX/DexEx.

You'd be working on this thing: https://exo.deref.io/

We're a pre-seed funded startup on a mission to help developers build better services.

Competitive salary, generous equity.

Contact [email protected]

Hi there, I'm the lead on this project. We're trying to improve the dev experience for service development. Lots of folks who have workflows on top of docker-compose, but there is still a big gap between what compose can offer and what real projects and organizations need. This release of our tool, exo, adds compose compatibility and provides a nice graphical log viewer, some UX for starting/stopping containers, etc. We've got big plans, but would love to hear from you about what would improve your den env.

Also, if you have compose projects that don't work, please do file an issue on github! Exo is open source: https://github.com/deref/exo - We're aiming for extremely robust compose compatibility, but aren't 100% there yet.

Deref's mission is to enable engineers everywhere to build and maintain world-class cloud services. Coding the perimeter is a fundamental design tenant of exo, our DevOps toolkit that enhances your development environment.