It’s great to see this write up - should be mandatory reading for anyone getting started with compilers. But it’s not news for the experienced folks in the field.
I wish people would quit pretending that a research paper should only have the most novel/freshest/unique results. It would not only dramatically improve researchers lives it would actually improve the average quality of research output because you would no longer have to exaggerate claims.
This paper is documenting reality that is known to folks who practice the craft so in that sense it is not research as I would normally think of it. But it is useful documentation and so worth having written down.
Literature reviews are still research. As are other publications that are not just completely novel observations. I think your terminology is in error here.
> folks who practice the craft so in that sense it is not research
I "practice the craft" (and I'm fully, gainfully, highly employed to practice the craft), I have a PhD in the "craft", I have published papers about the "craft", and I'm here to tell you IDGAF about what's terminologically research and what's not. I only care about well-written, detailed articles that explain a complex technical issue, problem, or solution.
There are also lots of horribly written, superficial articles that do call themselves research. Hence my overarching point: let's quit with the dog and pony show.
EDIT:
"Research is 'creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge'. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to controlling sources of bias and error."
The crucial/key words/phrases here are: "systematic", "increase understanding of a topic", "controlling sources of bias and error". Nowhere do I see "completely brand new never before heard of".
PLDI, the premier compilers/PL conference, which you must put a lot of stock in since you care about the current institutionally supported notion of "research", disagrees with you.
I’ve been published there, twice, but academic understanding of PL implementation is probably at least a decade (if not more) behind where the top folks in industry are. If you’re good at abstract interpretation, IR design, GC, etc then you’re going to be making good money and having a blast shipping that shit to people, usually in some open source context with a friendly and nontoxic community around you. So much better than the hatchet-job style reviewing and publish-or-perish of the PLDI crew.
> I’ve been published there, twice, but academic understanding of PL implementation is probably at least a decade (if not more) behind where the top folks in industry are.
My friend you're just driving more nails into your own coffin; yes I'm very well aware of this and hence all the more reason to dispense with the idea that what PLDI publishes needs to be cutting edge novelty.
> So much better than the hatchet-job style reviewing and publish-or-perish of the PLDI crew.
Again: you're literally contradicting yourself. The reason PLDI and all other "top" venues are so toxic is because of people like you on review committees that demand utmost novelty. Relax your requirements (i.e. encourage them to relax their requirements) and you will magically transform academic research into a fun, friendly, and vibrant community.
Literally who cares? It's again the same thing: some kind of weird elitism about what qualifies as real research and who qualifies it. It's so simple in my mind: people did good work and they're willing to share it with the world without much in return (just a venue and 30 minutes to talk about it). Cool great I'm all for it no matter whomever/wherever/whatever. There is exactly zero scarcity here anymore that necessitates ranking anything at all.
I don't care where papers are published (in fact I mostly agree with you, I think that the idea that research needs to be novel to everyone currently in the field is harmful and leads to gate-keeping, self-censorship and unpublished folklore). I am merely pointing out that appealing to the authority of PLDI as the premier PL research conference to qualify the paper as research does not work since PLDI did not publish it.
> [...] should be mandatory reading for anyone getting started with compilers.
Well, only for those folks who you taint with C before you let them loose on compilers. If you follow something like https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_... as your introduction, I doubt you would benefit from worrying about pitfalls of C.
That's a good point. I guess I would say the article (or something like the article) is good for someone just a bit beyond 'getting started with compilers', but that's probably just a matter of exactly where you draw the line between beginner topics and slightly more advanced ones.
