It would be nice indeed. I hoped to see LLVM x86-32 compiler in XE7, it didn't happen. If it going to happen in XE8 and break old code, then true - XE7 will be next milestone after D7 and D2007 :)
David Novo those were rumors circa July 2012 from Rob's tech corner :) Forgot to add - you are correct, there is no official evidence of LLVM for Delphi for desktop.
Ilya S Any specific reason why you'd want this? While it has a great codegen, it would be rather slow and have other drawbacks. We are investigating this option... but no specific plans.
Jeroen Wiert Pluimers That means 2 compilers to maintain and support, two RTL versions to test, double DCUs and packages to distribute, a lot of potential incompatibilities... not to mention one would want both 32 bit and 64 bit (so all that 2 times). That will be a huge amount of work. Not saying it won't be worth, but it is not as simple as it might sound...
Marco Cantù along with codegen LLVM brings lldb, which might make debugging much more robust. I guess with LLVM back end it is possible to mix libraries from different front ends, which opens wide new possibilities for code reuse. Of course breaking old code with new codegen as the only option is no go. Doubling libraries sounds like less prohibitive case, more of a burden. These are general considerations, personaly I would hugely like to see Delphi compiler generating much more SSE2 code. As people say, this is 2014 year after all, it is o'kay to use SSE code widely :)
A mild spanking for posting such incendiary conclusions ;)
ReplyDeleteFred Ahrens wise choice, if you like each and every release :)
ReplyDeleteIlya S After Delphi 7 and 2007 there might be a chance that XE7 is the one that stays for a while ...
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice indeed. I hoped to see LLVM x86-32 compiler in XE7, it didn't happen. If it going to happen in XE8 and break old code, then true - XE7 will be next milestone after D7 and D2007 :)
ReplyDeleteIlya S Is there any indication that EMB is even considering porting the windows compilers to LLVM? I have not even see that mentioned.
ReplyDeleteDavid Novo There were a few people trying to interpret the very dense XE7 slides presented a while ago. Boy, I was wrong on that (:
ReplyDeleteJeroen Wiert Pluimers I can provide the tea leaves next time that we can all try to read. Maybe chamomile will work.
ReplyDeleteDavid Novo those were rumors circa July 2012 from Rob's tech corner :)
ReplyDeleteForgot to add - you are correct, there is no official evidence of LLVM for Delphi for desktop.
Ilya S Just to clarify, CLANG for Win32 is not a Delphi compiler for Win32, but a C++ one...
ReplyDeleteThank you, Marco. This is not what I have hoped to hear, but nonetheless is good for C++ Builder.
ReplyDeleteMarco Cantù do you have Delphi LLVM Win32/64 compiler in the works?
ReplyDeleteIlya S Any specific reason why you'd want this? While it has a great codegen, it would be rather slow and have other drawbacks. We are investigating this option... but no specific plans.
ReplyDeleteIf the LLVM can produce better assembly code, that would be worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteMarco Cantù only in addition to the existing compiler. Like a debug/release/optimized mode.
ReplyDeleteJeroen Wiert Pluimers That means 2 compilers to maintain and support, two RTL versions to test, double DCUs and packages to distribute, a lot of potential incompatibilities... not to mention one would want both 32 bit and 64 bit (so all that 2 times).
ReplyDeleteThat will be a huge amount of work. Not saying it won't be worth, but it is not as simple as it might sound...
Marco Cantù along with codegen LLVM brings lldb, which might make debugging much more robust. I guess with LLVM back end it is possible to mix libraries from different front ends, which opens wide new possibilities for code reuse.
ReplyDeleteOf course breaking old code with new codegen as the only option is no go. Doubling libraries sounds like less prohibitive case, more of a burden.
These are general considerations, personaly I would hugely like to see Delphi compiler generating much more SSE2 code. As people say, this is 2014 year after all, it is o'kay to use SSE code widely :)
Marco Cantù I know. Competition isn't resting either.
ReplyDelete