Plugins [was Re: 3.1 bootstrap failure in libjava]

[Rob Johnson]

> There's no plan, yet, except in my head.  When someone comes along and
> asks me to implement the plan, then I'll get more concrete...
> 
> Basically, there ought to be a documented interface (what a concept!)
> between the front-ends and the back-ends, and, in my opinion, it ought
> to be possible to distribute front-ends as plug-ins for this
> interface.
> 
> We are talking very pie-in-the-sky here; this is not happenning any
> time soon.

On a similar plugin-ish topic, I've started writing a subsystem for
dynamically loading extra compiler passes at runtime.  It still doesn't
do anything useful.  Some of my office-mates here have suggested other
useful plugins, such as pluggable alias-analysis engines, but I'm just
concentrating on extra passes at the moment.  Extra passes could be used
to perform additional optimizations or program analysis and
verification.  For example, I would like to be able to make the metal
project from stanford, which has found a few hundred bugs in the linux
kernel, a plugin.

I hope to have something that does work by the end of may.  I'll mail
the list with a lengthier description/justification at that time.

Best,
Rob Johnson