Getting involved with Futhark
Futhark is both a research- and an open source project. Everything we implement is released under a free software license, and we do all our development in the open, on Github. There are several ways of getting involved:
Submit a bug! Just open an issue on our bug tracker. This does not have to be an actual compiler bug, but might just be a feature suggestion, language design proposal, request for documentation, or anything else you believe we should do.
Write a patch! Improving the compiler can be hard, but it is very rewarding! The Futhark compiler is implemented in Haskell, and while an attempt has been made to steer away from the more obscure Haskell features and keep the design simple and maintainable, it is still an optimising compiler. Such beasts are always a little complicated.
A compiler patch does not have to be some sophisticated new optimisation - everything from fixing a typo in a comment to making the generated code look slightly prettier is very welcome.
Write a new benchmark program! We want to make the fastest functional language there is, but for that to work, we will need benchmark programs. We already have a healthy set of benchmarks, but we could always use more. We are most interested in programs that already have implementations in other languages, as this makes comparisons possible.
Improve this website! The Futhark website is also on Github and probably has room for improvement.
Furthermore, there is a #futhark IRC channel on
Libera, and
/r/futhark on Reddit, and a
channel on gitter.im.