Re: [plugins] Comparison of plugin mechanisms

[Taras Glek <taras dot glek at gmail dot com>]

Grigori Fursin wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Zbigniew and I prepared a page on GCC Wiki comparing several current plugin
> mechanisms (some parts should be updated) with some suggestions to move forward:
> http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GCC_PluginComparison
> In case we mixed up or misunderstood something about other plugin
> efforts, update this page, please ...
>
> Basically, we currently see 3 complementary categories of GCC plugins, depending 
> on the nature of the extension: production, experimentation/research, and new pass 
> integration. Each category naturally calls for slightly different API features. 
>   
I respectfully disagree. I think this division is unnatural. Most 
plugins will be extending GCC with new features and there is a 
possibility of those plugin eventually becoming part of the GCC core. I 
don't see any difference between our "production" plugins, experimental 
plugins and new pass plugins. There are use-cases where our "production" 
plugins would want to rearrange pass execution and even to add new passes.

I think something like the pass manager APIs you suggest should go into 
tree-pass.h. It doesn't make sense to put every new API that plugins 
would want to use into plugin headers as eventually some GCC code is 
likely to benefit from the same features.

I don't know enough about feature stuff, but it seems like that'd be 
something that should also be a separate API from plugins.

I don't know enough about the intent of the event stuff,  but it sounds 
like that might actually be something only plugins would care about.
> Considering that there are already communities behind "production" and "experimental" plugins,
> we think that it would be better to merge two. We will try to prepare a small patch to support 
> "experimental" plugins by the beginning of next week. In the mean time, would like to know your 
> thoughts on that matter and how should we proceed forward !..
>   
Like I said, I don't think the communities are as distinct as you are 
implying.

Cheers,
Taras