LLVM IR influence on compiler debugging

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 07-07-2012 12:45, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> On 2012-07-07 01:50, Adam Wilson wrote:
>
>> My guess is that, unless something changes significantly, DMD will
>> remain a niche tool; useful as a reference/research compiler, but for
>> actual work people will use LDC or GDC.
>
> One think I really like about DMD is that is really fast at compiling.
> It's also a lot faster to compile DMD and LDC/GDC, especially if you
> need to compile the backends.

True, but then again, DMD only targets /one/ architecture, while e.g. 
LLVM targets lots. On a high-end 4-core x86, building LLVM and LDC can 
usually be done in less than an hour, even when building them in 
optimized mode. Plus, you usually don't need to recompile LLVM anyway, 
only LDC.

>
>> At the moment, the ONLY reasons I use DMD are to test my changes to the
>> compiler and that LLVM doesn't yet support SEH. As soon as LDC supports
>> SEH, and it will (I hear 3.2 will), I will move all my work to LDC. So
>> what if it's a version or two behind, it has superior code generation
>> and better Windows support (COFF/x64 anybody?).
>
> That is being worked on:
>
> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/commit/2511126cd7a234797e8b32515e419ce4f84ca928
>
>

I just hope this will mean we can use the Microsoft linker...

-- 
Alex Rønne Petersen
alex at lycus.org
http://lycus.org