[cfe-commits] r44776 - in /cfe/trunk/www: comparison.html features.html
Chris Lattner
sabre at nondot.org
Sun Dec 9 21:06:16 PST 2007
Author: lattner
Date: Sun Dec 9 23:06:15 2007
New Revision: 44776
URL: http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project?rev=44776&view=rev
Log:
minor edits
Modified:
cfe/trunk/www/comparison.html
cfe/trunk/www/features.html
Modified: cfe/trunk/www/comparison.html
URL: http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project/cfe/trunk/www/comparison.html?rev=44776&r1=44775&r2=44776&view=diff
==============================================================================
--- cfe/trunk/www/comparison.html (original)
+++ cfe/trunk/www/comparison.html Sun Dec 9 23:06:15 2007
@@ -17,8 +17,10 @@
always clear to people why we decided to do this. Here we compare clang
and its goals to other open source compiler front-ends that are
available. We restrict the discussion to very specific technical points
- to avoid controversy where possible. Also, software is infinitely
- mutable, so we avoid mentioning anything that would be easy to fix.</p>
+ to avoid controversy where possible. Also, since software is infinitely
+ mutable, so focus on architectural issues that are impractical to fix
+ without a major rewrite, instead of talking about little details that
+ can be fixed with a reasonable amount of effort.</p>
<p>The goal of this list is to describe how differences in goals lead to
different strengths and weaknesses, not to make some compiler look bad.
@@ -32,7 +34,7 @@
<h2><a name="gcc">Clang vs GCC (GNU Compiler Collection)</a></h2>
<!--=====================================================================-->
- <p>Pros of GCC vs clang:</p>
+ <p>Pro's of GCC vs clang:</p>
<ul>
<li>GCC supports languages that clang does not aim to, such as Java, Ada,
@@ -44,7 +46,7 @@
<li>GCC does not require a C++ compiler to build it.</li>
</ul>
- <p>Pros of clang vs GCC:</p>
+ <p>Pro's of clang vs GCC:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Clang ASTs and design are intended to be easily understandable to
@@ -67,12 +69,13 @@
reentrant or multi-threadable, etc. Clang has none of these problems.
</li>
<li>For every token, clang tracks information about where it was written and
- where it was ultimately expanded into if was involved in a macro.
+ where it was ultimately expanded into if it was involved in a macro.
GCC does not track information about macro instantiations when parsing
- source code. This makes it very difficult for static analysis and
- refactoring tools to work in the presence of (even simple) macros.</li>
+ source code. This makes it very difficult for source rewriting tools
+ (e.g. for refactoring) to work in the presence of (even simple)
+ macros.</li>
<li>Clang does not implicitly simplify code as it parses it like GCC does.
- This causes many problems for source analysis tools: as one simple
+ Doing so causes many problems for source analysis tools: as one simple
example, if you write "x-x" in your source code, the GCC AST will
contain "0", with no mention of 'x'. This is extremely bad for a
refactoring tool that wants to rename 'x'.</li>
@@ -101,7 +104,7 @@
<h2><a name="elsa">Clang vs Elsa (Elkhound-based C++ Parser)</a></h2>
<!--=====================================================================-->
- <p>Pros of Elsa vs clang:</p>
+ <p>Pro's of Elsa vs clang:</p>
<ul>
<li>Elsa's support for C++ is far beyond what clang provides. If you need
@@ -109,12 +112,12 @@
Elsa is missing important support for templates and other pieces: for
example, it is not capable of compiling the GCC STL headers from any
version newer than GCC 3.4.</li>
- <li>Elsa's parser and AST is designed to be easily composable by adding
- grammar rules. Clang has a very simple and easily extensible parser,
- but requires you to write C++ code to extend it.</li>
+ <li>Elsa's parser and AST is designed to be easily extensible by adding
+ grammar rules. Clang has a very simple and easily hackable parser,
+ but requires you to write C++ code to do it.</li>
</ul>
- <p>Pros of clang vs Elsa:</p>
+ <p>Pro's of clang vs Elsa:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Elsa community is extremely small and major development work seems
@@ -128,7 +131,7 @@
AST.</li>
<li>Elsa does not have an integrated preprocessor, which makes it extremely
difficult to accurately map from a source location in the AST back to
- its original position before preprocessing. Likewise, it does not keep
+ its original position before preprocessing. Like GCC, it does not keep
track of macro expansions.</li>
<li>Elsa is slower and uses more memory than GCC, which requires far more
space and time than clang.</li>
@@ -144,14 +147,14 @@
<h2><a name="pcc">Clang vs PCC (Portable C Compiler)</a></h2>
<!--=====================================================================-->
- <p>Pros of PCC vs clang:</p>
+ <p>Pro's of PCC vs clang:</p>
<ul>
<li>The PCC source base is very small and builds quickly with just a C
compiler.</li>
</ul>
- <p>Pros of clang vs PCC:</p>
+ <p>Pro's of clang vs PCC:</p>
<ul>
<li>PCC dates from the 1970's and has been dormant for most of that time.
@@ -160,8 +163,8 @@
C++.</li>
<li>PCC's code generation is very limited compared to LLVM, it produces very
inefficient code and does not support many important targets.</li>
- <li>PCC's does not have an integrated preprocessor, so it is extremely
- difficult to use it for source analysis tools.</li>
+ <li>Like Elsa, PCC's does not have an integrated preprocessor, making it
+ extremely difficult to use it for source analysis tools.</li>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Modified: cfe/trunk/www/features.html
URL: http://llvm.org/viewvc/llvm-project/cfe/trunk/www/features.html?rev=44776&r1=44775&r2=44776&view=diff
==============================================================================
--- cfe/trunk/www/features.html (original)
+++ cfe/trunk/www/features.html Sun Dec 9 23:06:15 2007
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@
As an example of the power of this library based design.... If you wanted to build a preprocessor, you would take the Basic and Lexer libraries. If you want an indexer, you would take the previous two and add the Parser library and some actions for indexing. If you want a refactoring, static analysis, or source-to-source compiler tool, you would then add the AST building and semantic analyzer libraries.
In the end, LLVM's library based design will provide developers with many more possibilities.
-<h2>Speed and Memory</h2>
+<h2><a name="performance">Speed and Memory</a></h2>
Another major focus of LLVM's frontend is speed (for all libraries). Even at this early stage, the clang front-end is quicker than gcc and uses less memory.<br>
<div class="img_container">
<div class="img_title">Memory:</div>
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