Using Clang for the shadow compiler of ON does make a lot of sense, to take
advantage of the improved static analysis, but it would make a lot more sense
to suggest that on on-discuss or tools-discuss than xwin-discuss - we're not
going to change some other consolidation's compiler setup here.
I'd imagine the first step required to do so would be to integrate a working
Clang package into the OS - either via SFW or as a spec-file in the Desktop
consolidation.
-Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at sun.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
Edward O'Callaghan wrote:
> I think switching from GCC to Clang/LLVM for shadow compiling and
> static analysis is a very sane idea, analysis and diagnosis is where
> Clang shines and GCC is totally useless.
>
> I'll give you a really clear easy example:
>
> bash-3.2$ cat t.c
>
> int main() {
>
> int i=5;
> if(i == 6); {
> return 6;
> }
> return 5;
> }
>
> bash-3.2$ gcc -W t.c
> t.c: In function 'main':
> t.c:5: warning: empty body in an if-statement
>
> bash-3.2$ clang t.c
> t.c:5:11: warning: if statement has empty body [-Wempty-body]
> if(i == 6); {
> ^
> 1 diagnostic generated.
>
>
> In fact, Sun is already investing time in LLVM for a similar project:
> http://research.sun.com/projects/parfait/
>
> Using the full Clang compiler suit and contributing code back to a
> *worthwhile* compiler with a future is far more worth the time of both
> the community and Sun.
>
> Clang/LLVM is the future, GCC is the past !
>
> Best Regards,
> Edward.
>
> 2009/9/13 Uros Nedic <urosn at live.com>:
>> I completely agree that Clang/LLVM is alternative, but
>> also I disagree that GCC should take over Sun Studio
>> space. From my perspective GCC would never achieve
>> performance level as Sun Studio has. It is just about
>> architecture and design of compilers.
>>
>> Clang/LLVM, as I said is alternative but only in performance
>> tuning and optimizing code during development process.
>> I do not see it as a final compiler solution, to be honest.
>> This position is reserved for Sun Studio.
>>
>> Uros
>>
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------
>> "Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men
>> is primarily based on mutual trust and only
>> secondarily on institutions such as courts of
>> justice and police."
>>
>> - Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
>>
>>
>>
>>> Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:33:42 +0300
>>> From: martin at martux.org
>>> To: victoredwardocallaghan at gmail.com
>>> CC: Nicolas.Williams at sun.com; xwin-discuss at opensolaris.org;
>>> LSARC-ext at sun.com; PSARC-ext at sun.com; Bart.Smaalders at sun.com
>>> Subject: Re: [xwin-discuss] Consolidations (Re: Obsolescence of /usr/X11)
>>>
>>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 12:25 AM, Edward O'Callaghan
>>> <victoredwardocallaghan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> You guys,
>>>>
>>>> Who cares about GCC..
>>>>
>>>> We have Clang/LLVM now.. Which is *much* faster then GCC in any way
>>>> that I can at least think of.
>>>> Sure it needs some more work and C++ support is not quite there yet
>>>> however its come a long way and its a great bit of software both in
>>>> code quality and what it can do in contrast to GCC..
>>>>
>>>> Please *do* try it out !
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Edward.
>>>
>>> *** Sorry for being on lists, where this post might seem semi-OT ***
>>> *** But I dont want to drop out without this (at least for now
>>> concluding?) response ***
>>>
>>>
>>> Hello Edward, my friend.
>>> Very interesting.
>>> But to me this looks more like future music, if you talk about the
>>> compiler with which OpenSolaris gets built.
>>>
>>> Look: gcc support *is* inside OS/Net for a long time already.
>>> All the problematic port, ARC and integration stuff has been done for
>>> it (mostly by Keith Wesolowski!!!) long ago in 2005 and finally spring
>>> 2006.
>>>
>>> Saying, Solaris gets built with Studio, was not entirely right.
>>> In fact all which Studio happens to be by default, is the primary
>>> compiler, while gcc is then the shadow compiler. You can inverse this
>>> by putting a single variable into the build environment:
>>>
>>> __GNUC=""; export __GNUC
>>>
>>> And furthermore: No shadow compilation is required at all (at your
>>> local computer). You can also disable the Debug build, lint and other
>>> options.
>>>
>>> To disable shadow compilation:
>>>
>>> CW_NO_SHADOW=1; export CW_NO_SHADOW
>>>
>>> In other words: Everything is functional (exclusively with a gcc that
>>> has sfw consolidation? csl-sol210-3_4-20050802 diffs patched in!!). So
>>> that is the difference:
>>> While you suggested something completely cool and amazing (yet quite
>>> experimental), I spoke about something that can be changed in an
>>> ultra-short period (Obviously: plus more testing and debugging
>>> afterwards, plus later performance enhancements [maybe]).
>>>
>>> Plus: When Solaris 10 FCS, err GA came out, it was the first public
>>> release with native amd64 support. And there gcc had been used to
>>> compile the amd64 kernel, and it was not just something like a shadow
>>> compiler with all object files being discarded. Instead they had been
>>> linked and then shipped in a major Enterprise production release.
>>>
>>> SUNWspro did not yet support amd64 at that time.
>>>
>>> Octave: Your other points look reasonable, but you probably didnt
>>> perform these tests with a patched GCC4.4, did you? Certainly even
>>> better gcc-results then ...
>>>
>>> And a few other questions which I have (as of how you have benchmarked
>>> what) . But before we continue the compiler discussion, I perform a
>>> few new tests myself. Then let us just compare and see.
>>> Anyway: I think Sun should rather engage in gcc and make it FASTER.
>>> And drop Studio. Campare it to having EOLed Xsun vs. actively
>>> contributing to Xorg.
>>>
>>> Just my opinion.
>>>
>>>
>>> regards,
>>> %martin
>>>
>>>
>>>> 2009/9/12 Octave Orgeron <unixconsole at yahoo.com>:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've seen this as the case with the following types of applications:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. HPC applications where Sun Studio optimization can help out
>>>>> considerably. This is the same in Linux/x86 shops who use non-gcc
>>>>> compilers
>>>>> for better optimizations.
>>>>> 2. Financial applications that process TB's of data for analysis. Would
>>>>> usually see about 20-30% improvement here.
>>>>> 3. Web Applications and tools. A few years back I use to work for a web
>>>>> hosting company and found that apache, perl, mysql, and qmail worked
>>>>> faster
>>>>> when compiled with Sun Studio.
>>>>> 4. SPEC benchmarks. These benchmarks do perform better with the Sun
>>>>> Studio compiler. Use to run these benchmarks to compare different server
>>>>> models and platforms.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now on a more practical side..
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. Solaris itself is compiled with Sun Studio.
>>>>> 2. Take something like Quake 3 Arena and compare the performance
>>>>> between it being compiled on Sun Studio vs GCC, you'll see a difference
>>>>> while playing.
>>>>> 3. Just 3 years ago I recompiled all the open source tools (compilers,
>>>>> interpreted languages, xml tools, numerical libraries, etc.) we were using
>>>>> at a investment company. The question was posed if Sun Studio would make
>>>>> faster binaries and libraries. We did tests against some of the key tools
>>>>> and found that at least a 10-20% performance improvement was seen.
>>>>>
>>>>> So from my experience, I've seen a difference since Sun Studio 10
>>>>> onwards and use it for all the software I compile. I think there is a lot
>>>>> of
>>>>> value in it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, I've seen the same kinds of results on other non-x86 platforms
>>>>> where the vendor compiler or a 3rd party compiler performed better than
>>>>> GCC.
>>>>> While it works on many platforms, it is not highly optimized on them.
>>>>> Obviously, Sun Studio is only on Solaris SPARC/x86 and Linux x86. It would
>>>>> be interesting to see Sun Studio on Power to support the OpenSolaris port
>>>>> there. But I don't know how difficult it would be to open source Sun
>>>>> Studio
>>>>> and do something like that. Of course, Sun was wise to buy Forte years
>>>>> ago,
>>>>> which I remember since I was in IT/Ops back then in the bay area. It may
>>>>> not
>>>>> seem like it on the surface, but it was a great investment and helped
>>>>> Sun's
>>>>> development tools and at the end of the day the performance increases in
>>>>> Solaris 9 considerably.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
>>>>> Octave J. Orgeron
>>>>> Solaris Virtualization Architect and Consultant
>>>>> Web: http://unixconsole.blogspot.com
>>>>> E-Mail: unixconsole at yahoo.com
>>>>>
>>>>> *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>>> From: Martin Bochnig <martin at martux.org>
>>>>> To: Octave Orgeron <unixconsole at yahoo.com>
>>>>> Cc: Nicolas Williams <Nicolas.Williams at sun.com>;
>>>>> xwin-discuss at opensolaris.org; Alan Coopersmith <Alan.Coopersmith at
>>>>> sun.com>;
>>>>> Bart Smaalders <Bart.Smaalders at sun.com>; LSARC-ext at sun.com;
>>>>> PSARC-ext at sun.com
>>>>> Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 4:13:45 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: Consolidations (Re: [xwin-discuss] Obsolescence of
>>>>> /usr/X11)
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Octave Orgeron <unixconsole at yahoo.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> I disagree on the points about the sun studio compilers. I've seen
>>>>>> better binary and optimization results with sun studio than with GCC.
>>>>>> I've
>>>>>> worked with GCC on other platforms, Power and Alpha.. and needless to say
>>>>>> it's a dog. All the development on GCC is really focused on x86 and most
>>>>>> optimizations for other platforms come from the vendors. Sun Studio on
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> other hand has a great tool set and the fact that it is free should make
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> idea of using GCC dead in my opinion. If anything, just more work around
>>>>>> dealing with GCC-isms would help compile and build FOSS apps. However,
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> bigger issue on that front is that many of those FOSS apps are starting
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> loose site of the UNIX philosophy of being easily portable between
>>>>>> platforms. So even if you use GCC, it may not work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
>>>>>> Octave J. Orgeron
>>>>>> Solaris Virtualization Architect and Consultant
>>>>>> Web: http://unixconsole.blogspot.com
>>>>>> E-Mail: unixconsole at yahoo.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Octave, this was true 20 years ago.
>>>>> Which kind of benchmark did you perform yourself?
>>>>> Yes, also on SPARC?
>>>>>
>>>>> The results might surprise you.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> But whatever, if nobody believes me, I will prove it.
>>>>> I dont like to fight with / against community fellows.
>>>>> When we have some precise numbers, we can continue our discussion.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Until then, regards,
>>>>> %martin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> xwin-discuss mailing list
>>>>> xwin-discuss at opensolaris.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> All Documents adhered to the ISO/IEC 26300 standard file format for
>>>> electronic office documents, such as spreadsheets, charts,
>>>> presentations and word processing documents from this email address.
>>>> The author does not take responsibility of the recipients inability to
>>>> read international standards and who use proprietary products such as
>>>> MS Office.
>>>> See: http://www.openoffice.org/
>>>> Edward O'Callaghan.
>>>> --
>>>> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EdwardOcallaghan
>>>> http://moonshine.opn4.org/
>>>> http://www.pcbsd.org/
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> xwin-discuss mailing list
>>>> xwin-discuss at opensolaris.org
>>>>
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