[LLVMdev] Clarification on the backward compatibility promises

[Evan Cheng]

> On Jul 9, 2014, at 9:52 PM, Eric Christopher <echristo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 9:33 PM, Owen Anderson <resistor at mac.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On Jul 9, 2014, at 3:51 PM, Eric Christopher <echristo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 3:12 PM, Evan Cheng <evan.cheng at apple.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Jun 17, 2014, at 2:10 PM, Eric Christopher <echristo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 2. Metadata compatibility. We already had precedence of introducing
>> incompatible changes into metadata format in the past within release.
>> Should we use relaxes rules for metadata compatibility?
>> 
>> 
>> I think we have a special case for debug metadata (and should document
>> that), but otherwise I think we should hold metadata to the same
>> standard as the rest of the IR.
>> 
>> 
>> The idea with metadata is that it can be removed and everything still
>> works. I'm definitely not ready to lock down the debug metadata format
>> and I really don't think we should for any of the other uses since
>> stripping already works. (Note, I don't consider function attributes
>> etc as metadata)
>> 
>> 
>> We may need to rethink this. If metadata is used only as optimization /
>> codegen hints, then yes I agree they can be dropped. But I suspect there is
>> a need for metadata that’s *required* for correctness. As LLVM continues to
>> gain clients beyond “just” compilers, we will need to be sensitive to their
>> needs. I anticipate use of LLVM bitcode files as persistent object format.
>> 
>> 
>> I think that metadata that's required for correctness should be baked
>> into the IR and not be metadata - so if there's something we need for
>> correctness we need to come up with an IR extension. See the recent
>> comdat work as an example.
>> 
>> 
>> That’s not really a practical suggestion for clients that aren’t essentially
>> clang.  The bar to changing the IR is (correctly) very high, essentially
>> unreachable if the client is out-of-tree.
>> 
> 
> Sure, but they likely have their own metadata format with their own
> needs and can keep their own local patches for their out of tree
> extensions right? As far as I know we don't have any metadata
> extensions in tree that are required for any correctness. If so,
> they've explicitly gone against the rules we set for metadata a long
> time back:
> 
> http://blog.llvm.org/2010/04/extensible-metadata-in-llvm-ir.html
> 
> Unless I'm missing your point completely of course :)

I don’t disagree with this. I am only cautioning against taking an absolutely hardline attitude towards metadata compatibility. As long as we take a pragmatic approach by providing ways for clients to maintain backward compatibility, I don’t think anyone will have problems with the stated policy. We will need to be very careful if / when we propose fundamental changes.

Evan

> 
> -eric