[llvm-dev] What was the IR made for precisely?

David Chisnall via llvm-dev
2016-10-28T08:59:59Z

On 28 Oct 2016, at 09:46, Mehdi Amini <mehdi.amini at apple.com>
wrote:
>
>> On Oct 28, 2016, at 1:21 AM, David Chisnall via llvm-dev <llvm-dev
at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 28 Oct 2016, at 02:43, ジョウェットジェームス <b3i4zz1gu1 at
docomo.ne.jp> wrote:
>>>
>>> I would need to sum up all the rules and ABIs and sizes for all the
targets I need and generate different IR for each, am I correct?
>>
>> This is a long-known limitation of LLVM IR and there are a lot of
proposals to fix it.  It would be great if the LLVM Foundation would fund
someone to do the work, as it isn’t a sufficiently high priority for any of the
large LLVM consumers and would make a huge difference to the utility of LLVM for
a lot of people.
>
> It seems to me that it could be a good fit for the scope of a GSoC project.

I think it would be difficult to do it within the timescale of the GSoC unless
the student was already an experienced LLVM developer.  It would likely involve
designing some good APIs (difficult!), refactoring a bunch of Clang code, and
creating a new LLVM library.  I’ve not seen a GSoC project on this scale succeed
in any of the open source projects that I’ve been involved with.  If we had a
good design doc and a couple of engaged mentors then it might stand a chance.

David