[LLVMdev] [RFC] WebAssembly Backend

[Philip Reames]

On 06/17/2015 09:16 AM, Dan Gohman wrote:
> Would the LLVM community be willing to let us start a new target from
> scratch within the LLVM tree, following normal LLVM
> incremental-development practices? The target would naturally start as
> "experimental", excluded from the default build. The code organization
> would look like any other backend, with everything under
> lib/Target/WebAssembly except for various bits of configury that any
> backend needs. We have need of the functionality provided by
> SelectionDAG, MI and others, so this will pretty clearly be a backend,
> rather than a specialized serialization. Also, the people leading the
> project are JF Bastien and Dan Gohman, existing LLVM contributors
> familiar with various relevant areas of LLVM.
+1.  I see no real downside to this proposal.

> Additionally, there are opportunities to refactor generic
> infrastructure in LLVM to better support the needs of virtual ISAs,
> including those in LLVM already and possibly more in the future.
> Working in LLVM from the start would make collaboration with the rest
> of the community easier.
Can you list some of the areas you know are going to need attention?  
What problems are you seeing?  (It might be best to move this to it's 
own thread or keep this very high level for now.)

Philip