[LLVMdev] RFC: Staging area proposal for new backends

[Justin Holewinski]

On Jul 27, 2012, at 7:05 PM, Chris Lattner <clattner at apple.com> wrote:

> On Jul 27, 2012, at 1:39 PM, Tom Stellard wrote:
>> 
>>> We also need to come up with a plan regarding cutting releases. When
>>> 3.2 is branched, will all "staged" back-ends be removed?  Or will
>>> they be left in the distribution so interested parties can build
>>> them?
>>> 
>> 
>> I can't really think of any disadvantages to keeping staged backends
>> in releases.  Being in a release would help a backend get more exposure
>> and increase the number of users/testers it would get.
> 
> I agree, there is no reason to remove it from the source drop of the release.  The binaries produced for each release shouldn't include them though.

Sounds good to me, I agree that more exposure is best.

In terms of build system integration, I think it makes sense to do the following:

Add a ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL or ENABLE_STAGING flag that allows experimental features to be built (default: OFF)
Add an LLVM_STAGING_TARGETS list that contains all of the staging back-ends
Allow LLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD to contain a back-end from LLVM_STAGING_TARGETS *only* if ENABLE_STAGING is ON

This will allow the default configuration to not only skip the staging back-ends, but prohibit them from being built without explicitly setting ENABLE_STAGING.  Further, this will allow picking-and-choosing which staging back-ends to build.

Is there any reason not to try this out with the R600 target?

> 
> -Chris
> 

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