I remember meeting Alexia briefly decades ago. I was working in western Connecticut and went down to NYC (Columbia, I think) to hear presentations at a meeting where the Synthesis kernel was discussed. It was clever and memorable. She was known by her deadname at the time; the literature from then still has that name, so be aware if searching.
Rpython's JIT is pretty good at removing administrative work from loop interiors and oo layers; one might be able to play with it to see how much practical specialisation may help? Depending upon how much of the OS ABI its generated C uses, that could be done at least in a microkernel setup, and maybe even on nearly-bare metal?
Previous discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20337231">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20337231</a>