Re: LTO, LLVM, etc.

[Mark Mitchell <mark at codesourcery dot com>]

Mathieu Lacage wrote:

> A path where different solutions for different problems are evolved
> independently and then merged where it makes sense seems better to me
> than a path where a single solution to two different problems is
> attempted from the start. 
> 
> Which is thus why I think that "there are inherent reasons that you must
> necessarily have multiple representations".

There are a lot of places, in GCC and otherwise, where having a unified
framework for things has been a clear advantage.  So, I think your
statement that "genericity is most often bad" is too strong; it's bad
sometimes, and good other times.  You're definitely right that false
commonality can lead to bad results; but, on the other hand, a frequent
complaint is that people have to write "the same code" twice because
something that could have been shared was not.

That's why I think we should be talking about the effort required to
implement the approaches before us, and the payoffs from where those
approaches lead us, rather than generalities about design.  (And, if you
really want a prize, you can put "risk-adjusted" in front of "effort"
and "payoffs" above!)

Thanks,

-- 
Mark Mitchell
CodeSourcery, LLC
mark@codesourcery.com
(916) 791-8304