LLVM

[Gregor Richards]

John Reimer wrote:
> 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

I have now posted this at least three times.

LLVM's compiler is GCC.

  - Gregor Richards