On 13 September 2010 16:55, Jack Howarth <howa...@bromo.med.uc.edu> wrote: > On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 01:44:57PM +0200, Manuel López-Ibáñez wrote: >> On 13 September 2010 12:30, Paolo Bonzini <bonz...@gnu.org> wrote: >> > >> > Hmm, my impression was that GCC can mostly gain from clang-gcc, and only >> > lose from llvm-gcc... >> >> What will be gained and what will be lost in your opinion? >> > > I assume that, by clang-gcc, Paolo meant adding plug-in support for > a clang FE. It is unclear what is meant by llvm-gcc unless he really mean > dragon-egg. Certainly llvm-gcc itself is a rather dead-end as there appears > to be little appetite to attempt to update llvm-gcc to gcc 4.5 or later > due to GPLv3. Perhaps the best approach would be to welcome both. While > it can be clearly argued that dragon-egg is only a net gain for llvm, > the reverse could be said for a clang FE plugin to FSF gcc. By supporting > both approaches, both projects end up sharing and obtaining a net win for > each.
From a user-perspective, there are benefits on both clang->gcc and gcc->llvm. However, from what I know about the GCC project, I don't see yet how GCC developers can consider either more beneficial than the other. But I would be very interested on clarifying this issue, so anyone thinking about making clang->gcc possible can assess whether it is worth it. It seems Richard is supporting it, and that is a big vote in favour. I can guess why he is not similarly favourable to gcc->llvm, but then, others in the GCC project may be more favourable to gcc->llvm than to clang->gcc (depending what you are working on). So the question remains, would GCC accept patches to implement plugging clang to GCC? Cheers, Manuel.
