[LLVMdev] Your question about LLVM

[Dan Gohman]

On Oct 7, 2011, at 7:42 AM, Michael Clagett wrote:

> Wondering if you've gotten any further answering the question you pose below?
> 
> I also am interested in being able to generate a JVM backend, but not departing, as you are, from coding in java itself, but rather as a means to integrate my own custom vm with Java and be able to produce and consume java code easily from my custom environment.

LLVM doesn't produce Java code today, and it isn't especially well suited for this.

> 
> Just curios if you made any progress answering this question for yourself and the final one you pose:  "Is LLVM for me?"

The answer to "Is LLVM for me?" depends on what you're looking to do.  In your case, we
have few details to go on here, but it sounds like you're already pretty Java-oriented, so
sticking with Java might be a good idea.

Responding to the earlier email:
> Sorry if I'm repeating something that was already said.
> 
> I was just thinking "why the heck do I seem headed for JVM generation if 
> what I want to use is LLVM", and this is the result:
> 
> I'm coming from a Java background. I'm using Eclipse, I'm used to the 
> syntax highlighting, cross referencing and refactoring support that 
> Eclipse offers.
> I know I will want to have the same infrastructure for my language, and 
> I want it written in my language. I WILL need a JVM backend, no matter what.
> 
> Now, I'd still love to use LLVM. It has a lot to offer for the phases 
> "above" code generation. I don't need register allocation, but I'd like 
> to make use of common constant elimination, loop unrolling, inlining, or 
> the pass management infrastructure; that's a whole lot of code I don't 
> need to write.
> And when it comes to generating raw machine code, I can confidently say: 
> develop in Eclipse and run the stuff as JVM code, but deploy using the 
> machine-code backend provided by LLVM.
If you're looking for a way to develop in Java and then compile to native code, consider the
many Java-to-native-code compilers out there.  Many of them include optimizations like
loop unrolling and inlining.  LLVM is probably not the best tool here.
> 
> So my conclusion is:
> To make LLVM attractive for us Java-based language designers, we need 
> the means to write a JVM backend.
Translating from Java to LLVM IR and then back to Java would probably not be very
practical.  If you're a "Java-based language designer" to begin with, and you want to
run your programs in the JVM, it's probably best to just stick with Java the whole way.

Dan

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