[llvm-dev] Scalable Vector Types in IR - Next Steps?

[Renato Golin via llvm-dev]

On Fri, 15 Mar 2019 at 16:50, James Y Knight <jyknight at google.com> wrote:
>> Ie. the current series is already dead, no matter what we do
>
> But this last statement seems odd. So far, there looks to be a fairly good consensus from a number of experienced llvm developers that the approach seems like a good idea, both on this thread, and from skimming the earlier threads you linked from your original message.
>
> Doesn't that mean that the reasonable next step is to continue moving forward with the existing patch set?

It depends.

The previous public consensus was, indeed, that the native proposal
makes a lot of sense. I think this is ultimately where we want to be,
but I'm not clear on what the path really is.

>From what Graham said, and from his current work, I guess the "new"
(not public) consensus seems to be to go with intrinsics first, then
move to native support, which is a valid path.

If the public agreement becomes that this is the path we want to take,
then that specific patch-set is dead, because even if we do native, it
will be a different set.

If the end result is that we'll stop at intrinsics (I really hope
not), the patch-set is also dead.

However, if people want to continue pushing for native support now,
the patch-set is not dead. But then we need to re-do the meeting that
happened in the US dev meeting with everyone in it, which won't
happen.

So, while I would also prefer to have native support first, and work
our the wrinkles between releases (as I proposed in this thread), I'm
ok with going the intrinsics way first, as long as the aim is to not
stop there.

Makes sense?

cheers,
--renato

PS: Until someone writes up what happened, who was involved, what were
the issues and why the current consensus is changed, we can only
guess...