LLVM

[John Reimer]

On Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:41:28 -0800, Chad J  
<gamerChad at _spamIsBad_gmail.com> wrote:

> Craig Black wrote:
>> LLVM (http://llvm.org/) is a backend for compilers.  It is portable to  
>> many platforms, well documened, and actively developed.  It seems that  
>> they are making great progress with it.
>>  A crazy idea.  Has anyone considered using LLVM with D's front end?  I  
>> know Walter has his own back end, but it's seems hard for one guy to  
>> maintain both a front and back end, and do a good job at both.  Even a  
>> programming god like Walter.  If we had the LLVM team actively  
>> developing and innovating the back end, then Walter could focus on  
>> innovating the front end and the D language.  Just a thought.
>>  -Craig
>
> Hmmm... looks like they are working on an ARM backend.  This could be  
> nice.  If they get that ARM backend done by say, summer of next year,  
> and the D front-end is plugged in, then I might be willing to take a  
> crack at making ARM work on that one in addition to GDC.  Then I could  
> decide which one is nicer to work with and focus on that.  Kind of a  
> longshot though (they'd need wince support too).
>
> Admittedly the current arm-wince-pe GDC I put together has some uh  
> ...annoyances...   and I've no idea how to solve them.
>
> Now I wonder, is Walter really maintaining the backend much?  I thought  
> that part of dmd was pretty solid already and he is just focusing on the  
> front-end and other D affairs.
>
> What would impress me is if the main development of D would occur on  
> this LLVM compiler, or at least be readily portable to it within hours  
> or a few days (this assumes LLVM is a good quality backend that Walter  
> wouldn't mind switching to).  The utility I am looking for there is  
> having a bleeding-edge D compiler that is also very retargetable, and  
> doesn't require big man-hours to be maintained as it seems gdc does. DMD  
> is great on windows, but it is fairly useless on my pda since, well, it  
> doesn't even generate code for that at all!


I'm wondering if Walter will have the same source "tainting" issue with  
LLVM as he did for gcc.  I wish not because it would be much better if the  
reference compiler development could continue on a completely open system.

-JJR