[llvm-dev] BoF: Shipping Software as LLVM IR (@Upcoming Dev Mtg)

[Adve, Vikram Sadanand via llvm-dev]

Hi Alex,

> On Oct 16, 2016, at 9:54 AM, Alex Bradbury <asb at asbradbury.org> wrote:
> 
> On 14 October 2016 at 19:32, Will Dietz via llvm-dev
> <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>> (Some background to explain why we’re interested in this topic.)
>> ALLVM: We have a project in our group exploring the benefits of shipping
>> *all* software on a system as IR.  We are building a prototype ALLVM system
>> that makes it relatively easy to package and ship software in this way.
>> We are researching the benefits this could provide for performance and
>> for general software development.  We aim to make the ALLVM prototype
>> available in open source form to enable other groups to explore these goals.
>> Contact us off-list if you’d like to learn more about the ALLVM project.
> 
> Hi Will, is the focus of this BoF on shipping current target-dependent
> LLVM IR or does it also encompass proposals for a more target-agnostic
> format such as that proposed on PNaCl (and perhaps you're proposing
> something similar in allvm - I saw the hVISC poster in the PACT
> proceedings)?


Both are very much relevant — different users will have different needs and we’d like to include all of them in the discussion.  My personal opinion is that while incremental improvements can and should be made (e.g., for better vector ISA portability), any kind of general solution is a hard problem and different systems will probably have to adopt fairly customized solutions, as PNaCl and SPIR did, at least in the near future.

Since you mentioned it, the hVISC project (recently renamed HPVM) only addresses portability for parallel systems (GPUs, vector hardware, multicore shared memory multiprocessors), but not for  scalar code issues such as pointer sizes, endianness, OS APIs, etc., which are also important for use cases like PNaCl and SPIR.

-—Vikram

// Vikram S. Adve
// Professor, Department of Computer Science
// University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
// vadve at illinois.edu
// http://llvm.org

> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Alex