[LLVMdev] Summer of Code ideas

[Charles Davis]

On 3/22/10 4:37 PM, Chris Lattner wrote:
> 
> On Mar 22, 2010, at 1:27 PM, Charles Davis wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> I intend to participate in Google's Summer of Code this year, so I'd
>> like to bounce another idea around to see what you guys think. (I posted
>> a similar message to cfe-dev just now.) Be warned: this will shock you.
>> It may even horrify you.
>>
>> 1. Implement a 16-bit x86 backend. (*Chris recoils in horror*) Yeah, I
> 
> /me recoils.
I knew you would :)
> 
>> know 16-bit x86 is dead, but I find it interesting for historical
>> purposes (and also because the Wine project wants a 16-bit compiler to
>> make 16-bit regression tests :). Besides, then we can have a 16-bit
>> assembler, and we won't need GAS anymore to build boot loaders and the like.
> 
> I'd really rather not do this.  There is a high maintenance cost to having backends in the tree (every codegen change requires updating all backends).  Adding stuff that noone uses and can barely test is not goodness.
As you can tell, I figured this would be your response. So, I guess I'll
maintain it privately if I ever need it.

Or, perhaps, I could extend the existing x86 backend to support 16-bit.
It already supports 32-bit and 64-bit. But then again, I get the feeling
that you don't like that, either.

Chip