[llvm-dev] [3.7 Release] Let's fix the release notes!

[Hans Wennborg via llvm-dev]

Dear everyone,

The in-progress release notes for 3.7 [1,2] make it look like we
didn't do very much over the past six months. Obviously that's not the
case at all, so let's get them in shape!

If you've been thinking "I should probably add this to the release
notes at some point", now is the time :-)

I have a list below of changes that might be worth mentioning. I
probably missed lots of stuff; please let me know.

To update the notes, please commit directly to the 3.7 branch. If you
don't want to do that, just email me some text, and I'll happily land
it for you.

If you're uncertain whether your work is in the release or not, 3.7
covers commits r225992-r242221.

Other updates to the docs are also very welcome.

Thanks,
Hans


(You're bcc'd on this email if you're mentioned in this list.)

Lang: can you write something about the new ORC JIT interface?

Reid: how far did SEH support get in 3.7? Is this something we should mention?

I'll add something about the switch lowering changes.

Chandler: can you write something about the TTI changes? Just a small
blurb and pointer to
http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2015-February/081589.html
would probably help a lot.

Chandler: were there vector lowering changes in this release, or was
that all in 3.6?

Kostya: I think the sanitizer coverage is new in 3.7? And the fuzzer lib?

Diego: I think you added some new Clang flags like fprofile-generate.
These would be good to mention in the "new flags section" in Clang's
release notes. Is there any other PGO work that should be mentioned?

Alexei: maybe add something about the BPF backend.

Saleem: should we mention something about libunwind moving to a
separate repository?

Zach: should we mention llvm-pdbdump?

David: did you get around to writing something about the opaque
pointer type conversion? People will certainly run into this.

Duncan: I haven't followed the changes around debug info and metadata.
Is there something here that should be in the release notes?

Ulrich: would you like to mention something about SystemZ support?

Mehdi: the notes do say "DataLayout is no longer optional", but maybe
we could flesh this text out a little to make it easier for users?

Eric: do you want to add anything for out-of-tree targets after your
TargetMachine changes, etc? I stumbled across
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.compilers.llvm.devel/83858, for
example

Hal: the PowePC notes have a note saying "QPX - Hal, please say a few words" :-)

Alex: I think MIR is new for 3.7. Do you want to add something to the notes?

Quentin: How far did your shrinkwrap work get in 3.7? If it mostly
landed after the branch, maybe add it to the 3.8 (trunk) notes.

Alexey: Would you or someone of the OpenMP developers be willing to
add a section on OpenMP to Clang's UsersManual.rst? It would be nice
if the note in the release notes could point to this.

Peter: I think the SafeStack patch landed in 3.7. Should we mention
this in the notes?


 [1]. http://llvm.org/pre-releases/3.7.0/rc2/docs/ReleaseNotes.html
 [2]. http://llvm.org/pre-releases/3.7.0/rc2/docs/clang/ReleaseNotes.html