[LLVMdev] RFC: A Great Renaming of Things (or: Let's Repaint ALL the Bikesheds!)

[Chandler Carruth]

On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 1:53 AM, NAKAMURA Takumi <geek4civic at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2012/11/22 Chandler Carruth <chandlerc at google.com>:
>> Hello LLVM & Clang hackers!
>>
>> Based on a discussion with Chris, I would like to propose a Great
>> Renaming of Things for the 3.3-era LLVM and Clang codebase.
>>
>> First and foremost, the two most significant changes I would like to make:
>>
>> 1) llvm/lib/VMCore/... -> llvm/lib/IR/...
>>
>> I've discussed potential names for the VMCore (or LLVMCore) library
>> with lots of folks, and the best idea anyone has was Chris's initial
>> suggestion: IR. So I'd like to minimize the bikeshed discussions on
>> this one. ;]
>
> Oh I missed the discussion. I prefer "Core." Yes, bikeshed.

I dislike 'Core' and all other overly generic names. Specifically, why
is Support not Core? Or vice versa? I would like a name that actually
represents the principle organizing component, and that component in
this case is the C++ APIs making up the IR of the compiler.


>> There is one interesting question here: should we move
>> include/llvm/*.h to include/llvm/IR/*.h to match other libraries?
>
> IMHO, we may keep include/llvm/*. They should be essential interfaces.

I dislike the inconsistency of the include tree and the lib tree. When
that inconsistency is just collapsing an entire directory to a single
file, it seems fine and even good when the names align. But this seems
somewhat less principled than that.

Essentially, consistency is a strong argument. I'm looking for strong
arguments for keeping them where they are to counter that.


> s/AsmParser/IRASM/ (to be distinguished against MCASM)

This is a really good one.

I would paint this bikeshed LLParser or IRParser. "Asm" has to go though.