The diverse mixture of researchers at the institute should help create this understanding, organizers say. We also want to determine in what ways these infrastructures could be combined and what new infrastructure needs to be built. Stanford's Lam wants researchers at the institute to consider more than how to construct infrastructure. She wants them to look for ways to maintain and upgrade infrastructure once it is built. Lam and her colleagues are struggling to find funding and support to do the necessary upkeep on a compiler infrastructure they created over a four-year period with government funding.
Software needs to be continually maintained, and infrastructures have to evolve.
It's not like we can build one and then live with it forever. Lam says government support to build the compiler was essential, but there's no money to keep it working correctly. Many private research groups use the compiler, but none are helping to improve and expand it. Lam hopes the institute can stir discussion on these and other issues confronting infrastructure development. Organizers downplay the chances that the institute will produce any earth-shaking breakthroughs.