A Fast Bytecode VM for Arithmetic: The Virtual Machine

This post demonstrates building a bytecode virtual machine for arithmetic expressions in Haskell, achieving performance within 1.5-2.6x of equivalent C code. The implementation uses mutable unboxed arrays, the ST monad for local mutability, and property-based testing with QuickCheck. The author explores GHC Core to show how the compiler optimizes high-level Haskell into low-level loops comparable to hand-written C, discusses VM optimization techniques like branch prediction-friendly code layout, and benchmarks against both an AST interpreter and a C implementation.