These were legacy concepts that are now superceded by direct Torch to
linalg-on-tensors lowering. These were based on some very early thinking
related to the layering of frontends vs codegen, which is now obsolete
because:
- We expected a lot more centralization at the frontend (TCF) level. It
turns out that frontend needs really vary a lot, and there is no grand
unifying TCF dialect plausible. The additional layer isn't worth it.
- Linalg-on-tensors obsoletes the primary need for TCP. There are still
a few things not representable with linalg-on-tensors, but the support
is growing and the whole "not included in linalg-on-tensors" direction
needs to be rethought. Our TCP dialect didn't cover any of the
actually important things in this space (such as sort, FFT, top-k,
etc.).
See historical [slides](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iljcpTQ5NPaMfGpoPDFml1XkYxjK_6A4/view) / [recording](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jSPa8TwPKUt0WuLquGc8OgSUVYJHMvWZ/view)
for more details on the origin story here.
Their presence was confusing users too
[bug](https://github.com/llvm/mlir-npcomp/issues/248).
Also,
- Trim down npcomp-run-mlir testing. It was testing TCF to TCP
lowering for the most part. The essential stuff is retained and
rephrased with linalg-on-tensors. (we should probably rename it
"refback-run" or something, as it is just a way to invoke RefBackend)
- test/Python/Backend/RefJIT/simple_invoke_numpy.py is XFAIL'ed. Our
"anti-framework" direction seems to be the likely future path.
* Most updates are mechanical except:
* python/npcomp/__init__.py and python/NpcompModule.cpp: New init/registration bits to replace some automatic things being done in the old bindings. Also an annoying linkage hack that I'll need to triage next.
* NpcompModule.cpp: New python helpers for custom types and other hard to reach items (for the new bindings).
* PybindUtils.h: Extended type casting so that the local extension can directly exchange Mlir* C types.
* python/npcomp/dialects/*: Build support and ODS bindings for local dialects.
* mlir_utils.py: Defines an ImportContext to replace the old/bad "Helper" class that tracked locations, and insertion points. This has a number of methods on it that would be good candidates to think about better ways to do them upstream.
* Also hoisted a few stand-alone samples to dedicated unit tests as they covered important things.
* More cleanup can be done, but keeping this patch as mechanical as possible to stay in NFC land (this is big enough).
Sean Silva
Stella Laurenzo