<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV>Mithril</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The fictional metal from JRR Tolkien The Lord of the Rings. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Gandalf says:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>"<FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12.7px;"><I>Mithril!</I></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12.7px;"> All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12.7px;"><I>mithril</I></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12.7px;"> did not tarnish or grow dim."</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Paolo Invernizzi</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Apr 12, 2007, at 6:44 AM, Chris Lattner wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Hi Everyone,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">LLVM is a growing project, and many of us are very fond of it.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>:)<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>LLVM<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">is continuing to grow, both in maturity in specific areas and in scope of<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">areas that it is applicable to.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">When we first started the project, we focused on the design of the<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">intermediate representation.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>It is a strong design goal that the IR be a<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">self-contained virtual instruction set, which fully describes the program.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Because of this, we named the compiler LLVM, which reflects well on the<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">design of the IR.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">However, the scope of the LLVM project is outgrowing this name.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Today<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">LLVM does many "non-VMy" tasks, such as serving as a great static<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">compiler.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>It also has components that overlap with traditional low-level<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">tool chain components like assemblers and linkers.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Further, LLVM's scope<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">is about to grow significantly with new front-end technologies (e.g. HLVM,<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">new SoC work on a python front-end, etc).<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>For all of these reasons, I<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">think that "LLVM" is an increasingly poor name for the project as a whole,<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">and it causes a large amount of confusion, particularly with people who<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">do not know much about it yet.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">For what it is worth, this is not a new thought.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I have been kicking<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">around the idea of renaming the project for several years now, but have<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">been stymied by not being able to come up with a better name!<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>The problem<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">is hard: how do you concisely describe a modern, modular, component based<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">compiler and tool-chain system, which can be used for many different<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">things, hopefully many of which we haven't even thought of yet?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>How do<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">you pick a name that both memberable, relatively unique (searchable), has<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">an open domain name, etc?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>How do you come up with a name that is amenable<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">to making a logo?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>So far, I haven't! :)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Note that the name need not capture every aspect of the project.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Just<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">having a distinguished name with no specific connotation is probably good<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">enough.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>20 years ago, "google" and "yahoo" had very different meanings,<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">and "mozilla" or "firefox" were pretty meaningless.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Today, there is very<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">strong awareness of what they are.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">As such, I'd like to open up a forum for naming ideas.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I think we need to<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">continue to use the name 'LLVM' to refer to the IR (i.e. that which is<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">described in <A href="http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html">http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html</A>), and we should plan to<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">attach LLVM as a suffix to the project name for several years to come: For<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">example: "Use the Foo/LLVM Compiler System, it runs infinite loops faster<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">than the competition!".</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">To make this more fun, "success" is extremely subjective, and I have no<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">idea how we will declare a victor (we can figure it out as we go, right?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">:).<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I propose that people add ideas to the wiki that Vikram and Reid are<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">getting set up, and we kick some potential names around at the developer<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">mtg in May.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>That gives us 5 or 6 weeks to come up with a name and/or<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Logo.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>The wiki isn't up yet, so consider this to be a head start :).</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">If we find a good name, we can honor the one who came up with it with a<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">small amount of booty.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>For example, we're prepared to award a compiler<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">textbook of your choice (MSRP < $100) to the winner, optionally signed by<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">people at the dev meeting if you so desire and if they agree.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Alternatively, we could do a $100 gift card to Amazon or some other place.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">What say you?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Are you up for the challenge?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-Chris</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">p.s., no I don't think "Foo Compiler System" is a good choice. ;-)</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://nondot.org/sabre/">http://nondot.org/sabre/</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://llvm.org">http://llvm.org</A>/</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">LLVM Developers mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:LLVMdev@cs.uiuc.edu">LLVMdev@cs.uiuc.edu</A> <SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN><A href="http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu">http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev">http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>