[LLVMdev] LLVM IR is a compiler IR

[Justin Holewinski]

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Renato Golin <rengolin at systemcall.org>wrote:

> On 5 October 2011 18:03, Justin Holewinski <justin.holewinski at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >  So why must LLVM try to meet *both* goals?  Instead, different types of
> > front-ends can use custom intermediate representations that meet their
> > needs, and then lower to platform-specific LLVM IR before final code
> > emission.  I'm afraid that if LLVM gets into the game of trying to be the
> > intermediate representation for *everything*, then it will suffer.
>
> Hi Justin,
>
> You seem to be intermixing LLVM vs. LLVM IR.
>

Right, sorry, I meant LLVM IR.  I'm not clear to me that there is any
significant advantage to making LLVM *IR* platform/architecture-agnostic.
 The benefits may not outweigh the disadvantages.


>
> I think LLVM can have as many sub-projects as people want to, and they
> can create as many new shiny things as they want. LLVM IR, on the
> other hand, has specific goals and should keep tight to it.
>

Yes, I agree 100%.  I would much rather see LLVM IR stay platform-dependent,
and let different higher-level representations be used for platform-agnostic
work.


>
> As I said before, IR is what it is. But LLVM is not *just* the IR...
> There is a lot more that can be done, and Polly and OpenCL are just
> the beginning...
>
>
>
> --
> cheers,
> --renato
>
> http://systemcall.org/
>



-- 

Thanks,

Justin Holewinski
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