[LLVMdev] "Name that compiler"

Reid Spencer
Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:49:27 -0000

BTW,

In case I didn't mention it before, the names are being kept track of
here:

http://llvm.org/DevMtgMay2007.html#names

There's also some ideas for name generation there.

Thanks for all the recent submissions!

Reid.

On Wed, 2007-04-11 at 21:44 -0700, Chris Lattner wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> LLVM is a growing project, and many of us are very fond of it.  :)  LLVM
> is continuing to grow, both in maturity in specific areas and in scope of
> areas that it is applicable to.
>
> When we first started the project, we focused on the design of the
> intermediate representation.  It is a strong design goal that the IR be a
> self-contained virtual instruction set, which fully describes the program.
> Because of this, we named the compiler LLVM, which reflects well on the
> design of the IR.
>
> However, the scope of the LLVM project is outgrowing this name.  Today
> LLVM does many "non-VMy" tasks, such as serving as a great static
> compiler.  It also has components that overlap with traditional low-level
> tool chain components like assemblers and linkers.  Further, LLVM's
scope
> is about to grow significantly with new front-end technologies (e.g. HLVM,
> new SoC work on a python front-end, etc).  For all of these reasons, I
> think that "LLVM" is an increasingly poor name for the project as
a whole,
> and it causes a large amount of confusion, particularly with people who
> do not know much about it yet.
>
> For what it is worth, this is not a new thought.  I have been kicking
> around the idea of renaming the project for several years now, but have
> been stymied by not being able to come up with a better name!  The problem
> is hard: how do you concisely describe a modern, modular, component based
> compiler and tool-chain system, which can be used for many different
> things, hopefully many of which we haven't even thought of yet?  How do
> you pick a name that both memberable, relatively unique (searchable), has
> an open domain name, etc?  How do you come up with a name that is amenable
> to making a logo?  So far, I haven't! :)
>
> Note that the name need not capture every aspect of the project.  Just
> having a distinguished name with no specific connotation is probably good
> enough.  20 years ago, "google" and "yahoo" had very
different meanings,
> and "mozilla" or "firefox" were pretty meaningless.
Today, there is very
> strong awareness of what they are.
>
>
> As such, I'd like to open up a forum for naming ideas.  I think we need
to
> continue to use the name 'LLVM' to refer to the IR (i.e. that which
is
> described in http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html), and we should plan to
> attach LLVM as a suffix to the project name for several years to come: For
> example: "Use the Foo/LLVM Compiler System, it runs infinite loops
faster
> than the competition!".
>
> To make this more fun, "success" is extremely subjective, and I
have no
> idea how we will declare a victor (we can figure it out as we go, right?
> :).  I propose that people add ideas to the wiki that Vikram and Reid are
> getting set up, and we kick some potential names around at the developer
> mtg in May.  That gives us 5 or 6 weeks to come up with a name and/or
> Logo.  The wiki isn't up yet, so consider this to be a head start :).
>
> If we find a good name, we can honor the one who came up with it with a
> small amount of booty.  For example, we're prepared to award a compiler
> textbook of your choice (MSRP < $100) to the winner, optionally signed
by
> people at the dev meeting if you so desire and if they agree.
> Alternatively, we could do a $100 gift card to Amazon or some other place.
>
> What say you?  Are you up for the challenge?
>
> -Chris
>
> p.s., no I don't think "Foo Compiler System" is a good
choice. ;-)
>