[LLVMdev] Summer of Code ideas

[Chris Lattner]

On Mar 23, 2010, at 2:47 AM, Nick Frolov wrote:

> mån 2010-03-22 klockan 17:23 -0700 skrev Chris Lattner:
> 
>> We generally prefer for GSoC projects that are useful to a broad range
>> of people or that opens llvm to a new community.
> 
> My idea was to propose bringing LLVM to Inferno OS (the complement
> project of Plan 9 from Bell Labs). This OS has a virtual machine (called
> Dis) included in the kernel, which is the only option to write
> user-level applications. Unfortunately only one language can be compiled
> to its bytecode (Limbo). Inferno does not enjoy significant recognition
> from general audience, nevertheless it is used in as an embedded OS and
> a VM running on top of another OS (it is not intended to be a
> yet-another-language-VM though).
> 
> Robust compiler infrastructure can attract more developers to Inferno.
> Lack of support of popular languages is one of major problems on the way
> of its adoption. It is a better platform to start exploring fundamental
> ideas of Plan 9 than Plan 9 itself, because there are no hardware
> compatibility problems by design, as the kernel has out-of-the-box
> support for running as a user process on a different OS.
> 
> This work could start with implementing a backend emitting Dis bytecode.
> For languages that employ pointer arithmetic some kind of sandbox should
> be added. Later, support of JIT optimizer from LLVM could be added also.
> 
> Does all this count as opening LLVM to a new community?

Yes, particularly if the Plan 9 folks are interested in incorporating the result into their distribution.

-Chris