LLVM IR influence on compiler debugging

Adam Wilson flyboynw at gmail.com
Sat Jul 7 16:28:48 PDT 2012


On Sat, 07 Jul 2012 16:15:11 -0700, Walter Bright  
<newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote:

> On 7/7/2012 4:08 PM, Adam Wilson wrote:
>> On Sat, 07 Jul 2012 11:48:44 -0700, Walter Bright  
>> <newshound2 at digitalmars.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/7/2012 8:38 AM, Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Building dmd on my Windows box takes 26 seconds, optimized, using a  
>>> single core.
>>
>> Build speed of the compiler itself is an utterly trivial matter, my  
>> primary
>> concern is speed for the end-user. Even the build speed/memory usage of  
>> my
>> projects is not a problem, I can always throw more money at hardware.  
>> For
>> example, I am considering making the next round of developer box  
>> updates to
>> Intel Xeon E1650's with 32GB RAM.
>>
>> Gentlemen, from a business prospective, compiler and/or project build  
>> times are
>> the least of your problems. How well the code performs and most  
>> importantly the
>> accuracy of the code generation is of key concern.
>
> Throwing more hardware at a problem isn't going to get you a 120x  
> increase in speed.

I wont argue that, but again, that's not a primary concern. :-)

> While you're right that the customer cares not how long it takes to  
> build the compiler, the speed is important for the edit-compile-debug  
> loop of developing the compiler. For me, it matters quite a bit.

I imagine that it does, and honestly, I am not terribly concerned if DMD  
stays with it's current backend because once LLVM gets SEH, im gone. But I  
do wonder if DMD will become increasingly irrelevant as backends like GCC  
and LLVM advance. And I am particularly troubled by what seems like a  
duplication of effort in the face of more widely tested backends...

All that said, I understand the legal predicament. You can't do anything  
about it and I'm not trying to convince you too. I just want to see more  
promotion and support of the other options available.

-- 
Adam Wilson
IRC: LightBender
Project Coordinator
The Horizon Project
http://www.thehorizonproject.org/


More information about the Digitalmars-d mailing list