[LLVMdev] Slight troubles following "Getting Started" instructions

[Ted Neward]

As a suggestion, what about having "Common Uses for LLVM" that list out what
the LLVM n00b needs if he wants to...

(*) Get hello.c to compile and run in LLVM bitcode (This is the "what's the
absolute minimum I need to do to see this thing in action?" question.)
(*) Use LLVM as a back-end for a custom language or interpreter (This is the
"OK now that I've seen the minimum, I want to start playing with it as a
black box" question.)
(*) Explore the LLVM compilation process (This is the "I'm interested in
exploring the guts of JIT compilers and such" question.)

... and so on--I'm sure you guys can cook up better common use cases here
than I.

I'm sympathetic to Joachim's problems, having gone to the website and seen
all this info and finding it difficult to wade through. I couldn't figure
out that I needed *both* the llvm-gcc binaries and the llvm binaries, for
example, until I downloaded llvm, unzipped it, went to compile something and
said, "Oh, I get it--I need their special gcc compiler to get the bitcode
that llvm wants to work from." It took me a while to figure out what was
what, and even then, without Anton's help getting MinGW and msys installed
and in the right place, this ol' Windows-head would probably still be lost
trying to get LLVM up and working on my system.

Ted Neward
Java, .NET, XML Services
Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
http://www.tedneward.com
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: llvmdev-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu [mailto:llvmdev-bounces at cs.uiuc.edu]
> On Behalf Of Tanya M. Lattner
> Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 3:12 PM
> To: LLVM Developers Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [LLVMdev] Slight troubles following "Getting Started"
> instructions
> 
> 
> > I plan to run the test suite, just to establish a known baseline
> (this
> > is an amd64 machine, and things tend to be a bit less well-polished
> than
> > on stock x86 installations).
> > Does it make sense to
> > * first run the test suite with the binaries,
> > * compile llvm-gcc from sources,
> > * run the test suite again with the recompiled binaries?
> 
> What do you plan to use this baseline for? You shouldn't see a
> difference
> in results if you are using llvm-gcc you compiled from 2.2 source and
> 2.2
> binaries.
> 
> >>> Oh, and possibly a note why one would want LLVM, LLVM-GCC 4.2, and
> >>> LLVM-GCC 4.0, respectively. People usually know what OS they use
> and
> >>> whether they want binaries or sources, but those who're new to LLVM
> >>> won't know whether they will need LLVM or LLVM-GCC (and if they
> need
> >>> LLVM-GCC, they can't decide whether they need 4.2 or 4.0).
> >>
> >> True. 2.3 will solve this problem since we will drop llvm-gcc-4.0.
> >> Otherwise, we expect people to read the getting started guide to
> >> understand what parts of llvm they need and what they are. The
> download
> >> page should not be cluttered with this information.
> >
> > That's a bit of a catch-22 situation for me. I'm still in the
> "Getting
> > Started" phase, so by definition, I haven't read everything yet, much
> > less understood what I need.
> > I agree that cluttering the download page with such information isn't
> > optimal.
> 
> I agree. The web pages could be better. We'll try to figure out how to
> incorporate some sort of compromise.
> 
> Thanks again,
> Tanya
> 
> >>> Oh, and please don't label the Linux binaries "Red Hat Linux".
> Anything
> >>> with a primary label of "Red Hat" gets filtered out for me on an
> almost
> >>> subconscious level since I'm running an Ubuntu box, so the primary
> >>> labels that I look for are "Linux" and "Ubuntu". "Red Hat
> Enterprise
> >>> Linux" is quite a moutful, and the trigger keyword is almost last
> on
> >>> that line (and wrapped, too).
> >>> I'd rephrase that as "Binaries for Linux (tested for Red Hat
> Enterprise
> >>> Linux)" or something. (Heck, I'm not even sure whether it will run
> on
> >>> any Linux other than RHEL. I have no idea what differences there
> might
> >>> be between RHEL and Ubuntu; I surely hope none that affect LLVM-
> GCC.)
> >>
> >> The reason its labaled RHEL is because I'm not positive it will work
> on
> >> another Linux distribution. I don't see why its different to have a
> label
> >> versus having it in the name. Its just more words....
> >
> > Just to help people who're under brainwave overload :-)
> > The key rule here is: important keywords first, less important ones
> to
> > the right. In the case of Linux binaries, it's "Linux", then RHEL. (I
> > agree it's silly.)
> >
> > Thanks for the apprecation :-)
> >
> > Regards,
> > Jo
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > LLVM Developers mailing list
> > LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu         http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu
> > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev
> >
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