[llvm-dev] Adapting and open-sourcing PGI's Fortran frontend for LLVM

[C Bergström via llvm-dev]

On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 2:41 PM, Alex Bradbury via llvm-dev
<llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
> What will happen to flang development efforts?

I hope Hal is correct, but more likely he's just giving a tactful and
politically correct answer.

Reality is more likely that flang will have better code and design.
We'll end up with a Fortran front-end that mirrors the current quality
and capability as PGI. Frankly and no offence meant, but I would have
been much happily if they had just sponsored development on flang and
or worked with NAG (who has a much stronger reputation for actual
Fortran conformance - I've never tested PGI tbh)

Keep in mind that PGI's Fortran fe is likely c and has been around for
a while.. (Since the 90's?) The PGI engineers are welcomed to placate
my curiosity and correct any wrong assumptions. I hope like heck that
we don't end up with actual Fortran code (in the FE or runtime). That
would introduce a circular build dependency which I can assure you is
a major pita.

Other curiosities - will the module format be compatible with PGI
compiler? What about F2K8 and future standards? Arrays? Will they
(when?) publicly document how they are mapping things in Fortran to
llvm ir or we'll just end up with a code drop? (I personally know of a
few challenges with mapping Fortran to llvm ir)

Will we have to do a public information request or how much is PGI
being paid for this..