[LLVMdev] is anyone using the alpha backend?

[Chris Lattner]

On Oct 25, 2011, at 3:28 PM, Andrew Lenharth wrote:

>>> It would be a shame to lose it.  Alpha is an excellent example of a good
>>> RISC-style ISA.  There's at least one simulator out there that uses it.
>> 
>> In this case, I disagree.  The reality is that the Alpha target is not in as good of shape as (e.g.) the Sparc backend, there really is almost no hardware, and there are much better simulators for mips, sparc, arm, etc.
> 
> I only know a couple people using it, and those only with simulators.
> 
> The lack of reasonable speed real hardware is a major drawback to any
> type of maintenance.  (building takes almost 2 days on a 4 way smp).

Sure that makes sense.  Is there any reason to keep this target in mainline LLVM though, or is LLVM 3.0 and earlier good enough?

-Chris