[llvm-dev] RFC: On removing magic numbers assuming 8-bit bytes

Tue May 28 11:20:36 PDT 2019

Jesper, on the abstract decision model side of things, let me share my
understanding.  Note that I'm specifically not speaking for the project
as a whole, just the way I think about things.

In practice, we generally use a loose consensus model.  We don't require
full consensus, but we do require there to be a) an agreement on
direction being generally valuable to more than the contributor, b) a
lack of strong objections from established contributors, and c) an
(often implicit) commitment from the proposer to invest enough effort in
the project to justify any downsides other contributors might experience. 

Point (c) is frequently where a lot of large proposals from new
contributors fail.  Unless there's someone else strongly motivated to
drive it forward who can step in to satisfy (c), then a proposal is
likely to die on the vine.   Some of the most important feedback any
proposal gets is about how to reduce the cost to other contributors.  If
that feedback is ignored, then the proposal is almost certain dead.  (I
see this all the time.)

Point (b) is a major stumbling block, but can almost always be worked
through.  There's a couple of implicit points worth noting.  1) We
require that objections be largely technical in nature.  2) Anyone
objecting strongly is expect to be themselves a long term contributor
whose been through the process before. 3) There's a lot of horse trading
which goes on behind the scenes, and 4) because a strong objection is so
powerful, it's frequently waived.  Objections based on (1) can
frequently be addressed through offline direct conversation, and
frequently lead to revisions in proposal.  (Usually, a reduction in
initial scope, sometimes the opposite.)  (3) is a practical necessity as
no one has the time to review and think through *everything*; I'm much
more likely to invest time in a proposal coming from someone who I've
worked closely with in the past than a stranger.  (4) shows up in subtle
ways.  If you've seen me or someone else say something to the effect of
"Drive by comment", "minor concern", "deferring to X on point Y", those
are all indications that I've chosen explicitly *not* to express a
strong objection.

Point (a) may seem like the core point, but it's generally the easiest. 
Once (b) has been addressed, (a) almost always follows. 

Again, speaking only for myself. 

Philip

On 5/14/19 4:08 AM, Jesper Antonsson via llvm-dev wrote:
> Thanks to everyone that have weighed in on this! There have been
> remarks along the lines that the proposal lacks consensus to move
> forward, and that might very well be true. However, the decision model
> is not fully clear to me, so before giving up, I'd like to summarize
> the discussion to the best of my ability and ask for clarification on
> how the community makes its decisions.
>
> (First, I would like to emphasize that this is merely my
> interpretation, which may be flawed. If so, my apologies.) The RFC
> tl;dr is "without supporting non-8-bit bytes, we want to abstract the
> magic 8's used for bytesize to a DataLayout getter".
>
> It garnered some five supporters, including four companies representing
> out-of-tree backends: my own Ericsson, Synopsys, CML Microsystems and
> Codasip. I also count James Y Knight's (Google) remarks as positive.
>
> Two commenters I interpret as clearly against, among other things
> citing the need for a committment for an in-tree-backend using non-8-
> bit bytes to undertake such a change: JF Bastien and Philip Reames.
>
> Nine additional commenters provided side remarks to the discussion, and
> my interpretation was that five were in some small regard abstraction-
> positive as they provided input on the details of the abstraction,
> whereas two were more skeptical, and two were neither.
>
>
> Now to the decision model: If full consensus is required, we clearly
> don't have it, and we can stop here. However, if the abstraction were
> in place, we'd have a large majority against replacing them with 8s.
> And I guess it would be hard to move forward on very many things if
> everyone in a huge community can veto?
>
> Or should we take an insider-outsider perspective, then perhaps the
> opposers are in  majority as their in-tree voices are what counts?
>
> Or should we take a company perspective, then there's four companies
> backing this, while I'm unsure if e.g. JF is speaking for Apple?
>
> Or should we apply some reputation weights, so some people can veto?
>
> Or is it an informal mix of all of the above? I'm sorry if I'm being
> obnoxious, I really don't mean to. I'd just sleep better with clarity
> in closure, so that the discussion don't just fizzle out and I give up
> while having a sense that the community is leaning toward the positive
> on this.
>
> BR,
> Jesper
>
>
> On Thu, 2019-05-02 at 12:20 +0000, Jesper Antonsson via llvm-dev wrote:
>>    A. This RFC outlines a proposal regarding non-8-bit-byte support
>> that
>>       got positive reception at a Round Table at EuroLLVM19. The
>> general
>>       topic has been brought up several times before and one good
>> overview
>>       can be found in a FOSDEM 2017 presentation by Jones and Cook:
>>
> https://protect2.fireeye.com/url?k=0092ea36-5c19e105-0092aaad-865bb277df6a-f2acface76df5bb9&u=https://archive.fosdem.org/2017/schedule/event/llvm_16_bit/
>> In a nutshell, the proposal is for the llvm community to
>> allow/encourage interested parties to gradually remove "magic
>> numbers",
>> e.g. assumptions on the size of bytes from the codebase. Overview,
>> rationale and some example refactorings follows.
>>
>> Overview:
>>
>> LLVM currently assumes 8-bit bytes, while there exist a few out-of-
>> tree 
>> llvm targets that utilize bytes of other sizes, including our
>> (Ericsson's) proprietary target. The main issues are the magic number
>> 8
>> and "/8" and "*8" all over the place and the use of i8 pointers.
>>
>> There's considerable agreement that the use of magic numbers is not
>> good coding style, and removing these ones would be of particular
>> benefit, even though the effort would not be complete and no in-tree
>> target with tests exist to guarantee that all gains are maintained.
>>
>> Ericsson is willing to drive this effort. During EuroLLVM19, there
>> seemed to be sufficient positive interest from other companies for us
>> to expect help with reviewing patch sets. Ericsson has been
>> performing
>> nightly integration towards top-of-tree with this backend for years,
>> catching and fixing new 8-bit-byte continuously. Thus we're able to
>> commit to doing similar upstream fixes for the long haul in a no-
>> drama
>> way.
>>
>> Rationale:
>>
>> Benefits of moving toward a byte-size agnostic llvm include:
>> * Less magic numbers in the codebase.
>> * A reduced effort to maintain out-of-tree targets with non-8-bit
>> bytes
>> as contributors follow the established patterns. (One company has
>> told
>> us that they created but eventually gave up on a 16-bit byte target
>> due
>> to too-high integration burden.)
>> * A reduction in duplicate efforts as some of the adaptation work
>> would
>> happen in-tree rather than in several out-of-tree targets.
>> * For up-and-coming targets that have non-8-bit-byte sizes, time to
>> market using llvm would be far quicker.
>> * A higher probability of LLVM being the compiler of choice for such
>> targets.
>> * Eventually, as the patch set required to make llvm fully byte size
>> agnostic becomes small enough, the effort to provide a mock in-tree
>> target with some other byte size should be surmountable.
>>
>> As cons, one could see a burden for the in-tree community to maintain
>> whatever gains that have been had. However the onus should be on
>> interested parties to mend any bit-rot. The impact of not having as
>> much magic numbers and such should if anything make the code more
>> easy
>> to understand. The permission to go ahead would be under the
>> condition
>> that significant added complexities are avoided. Another con would be
>> added compilation time e.g. in cases where the byte size is a run-
>> time
>> variable rather than a constant. However, this cost seems negligible
>> in
>> practice.
>>
>> Refactoring examples:
>> https://reviews.llvm.org/D61432
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Jesper
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