Design and Implementation of a Compiler for a Reversible Object-Oriented Programming Language

Abstract

Moore’s Law has correctly predicted the number of transistors in computing systems growing exponentially for decades. The continued miniaturization of transistors lead to devices becoming smaller, more energy efficient, and more powerful at the same time. Since the early 2000s, this trend is slowing down as modern microprocessors approach physical limits. The demand for continued performance improvements, combined with the limits of energy efficiency scaling, has renewed interest in alternative computation models. Reversible computation prevents information loss during execution and, in theory, promises significant reductions in heat dissipation, offering a potential path toward improved energy efficiency. Despite these theoretical benefits, reversible computing remains largely experimental and no general-purpose reversible processor has yet been developed. Research on reversible hardware is ongoing, and recent years have seen growing interest in reversible programming languages. Still, compiler construction for reversible languages and source-to-source transpilation between them remain largely unexplored topics. This master’s thesis presents a translation from the high-level, object-oriented, reversible language Roopl++ to the low-level, partially reversible, intermediate language HSSA. To support the dynamic memory required by Roopl++, HSSA had to be extended with a managed memory module, enabling successful translation of the entire language. The resulting compiler demonstrates that reversibility can be preserved across translation and contributes a concrete implementation to the practical study of reversible programming languages.