Hi David,
The Graphite project and the various GCC targets participate in GCC development. Helping fix GCC bugs affecting those features, supports and grows the GCC developer base. There needs to be some mutualistic relationship. I don't see members of the LLVM community arguing that they should contribute to GCC to improve performance comparisons.
as I mentioned in my email, I see dragonegg as being a useful tool for comparing the gcc and LLVM optimizers and code generators. That sounds like the kind of thing you are asking for, but perhaps I misunderstood?
As Steven mentioned, LLVM has been extremely effective at utilizing FSF technology while its community complains about the FSF, GCC, GCC's leadership and GCC's developer community.
It is true that plenty of people disaffected with gcc can be found in the LLVM community. Dislike of gcc or its license seems a common motivation for looking into the clang compiler for example. It seems to me that this is a natural phenomenon - where else would such people go? It would be a mistake to think that the LLVM community consists principally of gcc haters though. If GCC is so helpful and
useful and effective, then work on it as well and give it credit; if GCC is so bad, then why rely on it? The rhetoric is disconnected from the actions.
I'm not sure what you mean. Working on an LLVM middle-end/back-end for gcc doesn't mean I despise the gcc middle-end and back-ends, it just means that I think this is an interesting project with the potential to result in a better gcc in the long term. Ciao, Duncan.