Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

The Ark Compiler has been at the top of the buzzword in the tech world in recent months.

This comes not only from its own architecture-level optimization, but also from its relationship with Hongmeng OS under the special time background. In addition, since its birth, the Ark Compiler has announced that it will be open source.

For Chinese software developers, open source is a familiar and unfamiliar word. What we are familiar with is that almost everyone uses GitHub, but the strange thing is that the underlying software technology in China, which does not seem to have a mobile end, has gone to the open source road.

At the Huawei developer conference not long ago, Huawei gave the open source schedule of Hongmeng OS and Ark compiler. In less than a month, on August 31, Huawei's open source website of the Ark Compiler was officially launched, and the framework opened the source code as promised to meet with enthusiasts and developers who follow the Ark Compiler.

It is reported that the open source version of the Ark compiler opens up part of the source code of the compiler framework, including compiler intermediate expression (IR) + language compilation implementation. Developers can obtain relevant code and documentation through the official website and code hosting website for reference to learn and understand the architecture and code of the Ark compiler.

Looking to the broader future, this open source is not only a technology release. Based on the Ark Compiler, Huawei leads the industry to jointly build ecology and community, which is the exploration of the open source road of China's underlying software.

"Ark" and "open source", there may be reasons to look at the two things together. Because software open source and community building have long been considered to be the key links that must be completed in China's software industry. The strategic value of the Ark compiler happens to be an opportunity and window.

Open source is the way, and the ark is the key. When the two are combined, we may have a glimpse into the ecological future of China's mobile industry and software industry.

Fifty years, the history of software development and the flood of industry

If you want to understand the value of Ark open source to the industry, you must first explain why software open source is important.

This question has to be answered in the long history of fifty years. In fact, the whole process of information revolution has always been accompanied by the continuous development and deepening of the software open source cause. It is not only an open-source history, but also a history of industrial revolution of information technology and Internet.

In 1969, AT&T Bell Labs developed UNIX. Over the next 10 years, the industry can obtain UNIX source code cheaply and innovate on this basis. In fact, UNIX and Bell Labs had already created the original version of open source awareness and community thinking at the time. Although AT&T has since stopped free UNIX version updates for commercial reasons, software developers have awakened their awareness of freedom and sharing. Since then, the computer age has always been accompanied by the software workers' love and obsession with the open source cause.

In 1984, Richard Stallman launched the GNU project with the goal of creating a completely free and backward compatible UNIX operating system. The following year, he established the Free Software Foundation around GNU, and the first private non-profit organization to promote free software was born, laying the foundation for the software industry to officially start open source work.

In 1991, the Linux kernel, which has been influential since then, was born. In fact, the famous Linux adopted GNU's system software set at that time, which can be said to be the development and inheritance of the GNU project. The Linux kernel was also opened up soon, and its development ecology directly affected the process of the Internet industry.

Android, which we are familiar with, is a mobile operating system written in the Linux kernel. The open source and ecological construction of Android has directly created the prosperous era of mobile Internet and smartphones. Compared with the closure of iOS, the open source of Android has many problems, but its high openness and low threshold also brings inclusive value to the industry and strong room for growth.

The road to open source didn't stop there, and the famous GitHub was released in 2008. The value of this platform is that it is an open source distributed software version control system, and all kinds of open source projects can open source software openly and fairly on the platform, so as to work with developers around the world to create a better software experience. Today, GitHub has become a widely recognized open source democratization platform, and its community ecology affects the process of software opening in various fields around the world.

Reviewing the 50-year history of open source, we will find that open source platforms and technologies have gradually developed on the basis of the needs of the times and the technologies of our predecessors. And a higher quality, more thorough, more free underlying software open source, will not reduce the competitiveness of a company. On the contrary, it can promote industry consensus and ecological prosperity, and use the wisdom of all developers to increase the technology dividend.

Therefore, the conclusion that the history of open source brings to the world is that the open source of platform technology is the basis of long-term dividend and the forerunner of industrial prosperity. Open source technology and open source community ecology that constantly adapt to the needs of the times are software towers built on top of each other. On this tower, software uses the wisdom of global developers to make itself better, and then feed the development of science and technology in the world.

The underlying model of ecological open source, the democratization of technology, and the community mechanism with greater contribution and greater voice have established the basic capability and global industry consensus for the sustainable evolution of the software industry in 50 years. Unfortunately, in this magnificent change, Chinese software people are more in the role of users and learners than change promoters.

Of course, this situation has been changing over the years. For example, Chinese companies such as Huawei continue to embrace open source. At present, Huawei has more than 10 board seats and more than 200 TSC, PTL and Core Committer seats in the open source community with great international influence. As a platinum member of the Linux Foundation, Huawei has contributed a total of 6800 + patches to Linux kernel and is the only Asian manufacturer in TOP 5.

Huawei, which has been accumulating in the open source business, is preparing to start the construction of an open source platform led by Chinese technology companies in the software fertile land of mobile ecology.

The hour hand of history may move at this point.

Today, the rudder of the ark

Looking back from history, the industry dividend brought by the open source road of the underlying software is mainly generated by this model: the software itself has great application value, and manufacturers and developers can get direct utility after open source; and the majority of developers in turn rethink, carve and optimize this software, and converge to form an open source community. This community is not only the continuous optimization of the underlying technology, but also the natural establishment of industrial consensus.

The open source of the Ark compiler obviously meets the basis of this logic.

For the majority of APP manufacturers, software developers and Internet enterprises, the understanding and application of the Ark compiler can bring core value, that is, the direct improvement of their own application experience. From a long-term point of view, the technical ideas and ecological value behind the Ark compiler play a long-term role in promoting the industry.

The open source Ark compiler framework code, can complete Java static compilation, including class hierarchy relationship analysis, virtual method table and interface table generation, native function processing, as well as reference counting based memory management, provide simple RC insertion function.

The open source framework at this stage mainly meets the research and learning needs of compiler experts and enthusiasts, while Huawei will continue to optimize other compiler components to better adapt the source code to the development environment of the open source community. At the same time, developers can participate in community contributions through the code hosting platform, including documentation contributions and code contributions, as well as feedback on related questions and requirements on this platform.

From near to far, we can see that the open source of the Ark Compiler, to the establishment of relevant communities and contribution systems, has triple value for the whole software industry:

1. Developers can enhance their industrial competitiveness by strengthening their understanding of the Ark compiler.

The Ark compiler has the characteristics of multi-language joint optimization, efficient memory recovery mechanism, flexible compilation optimization and very low learning cost. Now the Ark compiler has widely penetrated into various APP development fields in the industrial cooperation, and has become a new technology pry point for the improvement of user experience. The Ark open source itself, for these APP developers and the mobile application development industry, is an opportunity to enhance the coupling between their own industry and the Ark compiler by improving understanding. In the mobile Internet industry with fierce homogenization competition, this is another source of differential competitiveness.

2. Understand the cross-language compilation mechanism and improve your business ability and future-oriented mobile programming ability.

Ark compiler itself is a new compilation mechanism, especially with the ability of cross-language programming. To a great extent, this is an optimization and improvement of the current programming foundation. People in the industry all know that although cross-language compilation has become the mainstream of the industry, there are a large number of pain points. For example, the JNI and reflection mechanisms are expensive; the Java code and the CumberCure + code are invisible to each other; the cross-language full-program optimization cannot be implemented, and so on.

The open source Ark compiler framework code, including compiler intermediate representation (IR) and language compilation implementation. Developers can build a compiler tool chain based on open source code + binary, and try to compile Java programs. In this way, developers can improve their business ability and understanding level in the field of cross-language programming by being familiar with the architecture of the Ark compiler-- through the "disassembly style" of each other's boat, to achieve the common progress of the basic software level of the industry.

3. Participate in the ecological establishment of the Ark and get a long-term dividend in the growing open source environment.

Compiler is a huge software project, which needs to be established and improved step by step. For software developers, university researchers and terminal manufacturers, the open source community promoted by Ark at this time can be said to be the basis of China Mobile software open source community and a good platform to seek industry consensus in the future. Joining at this time can not only enhance the business competitiveness in the short term, but also help to accumulate the voice in the future community through long-term contribution. In the process of open source one after another, the Ark Compiler will establish a hosting platform, decide the right to speak according to its contribution, move towards an open governance mechanism, and finally form a community ecology. This is a new attempt of terminal software in China, whether it is to complete the industrial chain, or to the future, will continue to stimulate technology and community dividends. These dividends will be released to the industry and developer ecology for a long time, especially for early participants and active contributors.

Like many great underlying technologies, the Ark compiler is open source and open to all smart brains. And when developers embrace the ark at this moment, they must pay attention to such a thing: where is the ark heading?

Road and distance

After the mobile era, where will the next era of the technology industry come from? I think there should be a preliminary consensus on this issue: 5G to enhance the connection capacity; AI to change the interaction; IoT devices as a hardware form, jointly woven into the next era.

For the software and mobile industries, the key question today is: how should I go down this path?

You know, the imagination of AI, 5G and IoT complement each other, but there are too many technical difficulties involved, and there is a serious lack of technical consensus in the initial stage. For example, AIoT chips, networks, applications, algorithms, and the future evolution direction, these are full of uncertainty, even self-contradictory industry status quo.

How to make this road to the future really open? Drawing on the 50-year history of information technology, we will find that open source and technological democracy are the best way to establish a technological consensus at the bottom of the industry.

The intelligent era of 5G blending AI is the first time that Chinese and Chinese developers have fully grasped the science and technology industry revolution, but this is both an opportunity and a test. When we need the long-term dividend of open source ecology and community, we must first build ecology and community. The technology door of the future needs a key to open, and the open source community and technology ecology need the first handful of dirt to accumulate.

Where do we start? Why not start with the ark?

We know that the Ark compiler is an important tool for Hongmeng OS, while Hongmeng OS is the underlying operating system for IoT, and it is also the key interface for AI and 5G to integrate into the new hardware era.

If we look at the open source from Ark to Hongmeng as a long-term and long-term ecological system project, we will find that Huawei is actually opening up the future-oriented Chinese open source community based on the Ark that has just happened.

Ark open source and improvement, is an uninterrupted process, is a systematic project, but also the long-term track of industry dividend release. Next, the Ark Compiler in 2020 will open the Java compiler tool chain to support the compilation of Java programs; in 2021, the Ark Compiler will open the support for JavaScript language, which can be used for the compilation of JS applications.

At the same time, the open source work of Hongmeng OS will also be carried out one after another. Huawei will continue to contribute its software technical capabilities to the industry in the community, and work with the industry to explore better software technologies that are more in line with the needs of the times.

Along this path, we can already imagine many things today, such as killer applications based on AIoT logic and the growth of star companies; for example, the IoT industry has ushered in a lot of consensus to rapidly improve industrial efficiency; for example, the general efficiency of the software development industry has been improved, and more creative thinking and talents will be gathered into the software.

The future is still long, but the key is already in hand. In the past, when we asked the Chinese software industry why it was always a follower rather than a creator, the answer was very simple, because no one took the first step, no one chose the hardest and most tiring work to complete, and there was no open source consensus and thinking.

Now, a lot of things have changed. From Ark to Open Source, from Open Source to Ecology-Hongmeng has opened, spring grass is green.

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