On 10/feb/2013, at 15:58, Florian Klaempfl <flor...@freepascal.org> wrote:
> Am 10.02.2013 15:23, schrieb Vittorio Giovara: >> Indeed, a fpc->js code generator would have a rather limited use. A >> LLVM backend instead could be use on many more levels, and for example >> could improve (or replace) the compilation process on iOS. > > Improve in which regard? Experience showed that the more tools involved the > less comfortable the use of FPC is. Within a few minutes you can build on any > platform a win32 cross compiler (if the CPU is fast enough) because no > external tools are involved. Compare this with cross compiling to linux (no > to talk about darwin): takes usually 1-2 hours to setup: first, download, > configure and build binutils, then sort out the libraries and copy them to > host system, and then with some luck (if binutils are not broken), building > fpc might work. Well the existence of external tools is what has allowed technology to foster and advance, eg have some common grounds and entry points... Your (limited) example is not exactly perfect, the tools that fpc bundle on windows are often outdated and conflict which the other tools (off the top of my head mingw or ld). And I successfully crosscompiled Darwin from Linux, it was a much less painful process than setting up a build environment under Windows. But I digress. The iOS experience could be improved in many ways, for example in Xcode you cannot set a breakpoint and when you do so with gdb all you get is an assembly viewer; having a LLVM backend could actually allow a better debugging and other tricks such as those provided by www.piecable.com > Not to mention that I estimate that full llvm support with debugging and > extending llvm to support everything required by fpc might be more something > like 1-2 years of full time work than a few summer months of work of a > student. I know that this is not going to be an easy project but please as I said don't underestimate students, GSoC people have carried out tasks that revolutionized more than one organization. Moreover I think that trying to offer help to achieve this long term goal is better than pestering on IRC with "is the LLVM-fpc branch ready yet??" Cheers, Vittorio > _______________________________________________ > fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org > http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel _______________________________________________ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
