From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jun 18 16:44:27 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E38D11065672 for ; Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:44:27 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from feld@feld.me) Received: from feld.me (unknown [IPv6:2607:f4e0:100:300::2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B3D5C8FC14 for ; Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:44:27 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=feld.me; s=blargle; h=In-Reply-To:Message-Id:From:Mime-Version:To:Date:References:Subject:Cc:Content-Type; bh=jC1Cy2BmGhTb2byzGKRHalSccAxHSND9lt5fyRR7q1M=; b=d3w5A/PBMPgHZ2CRpJPrOo4JbB+K0XWCYz9UVBxvXWbgH3x65EJfM70Y+Irk30Ea49PSNljPfrlIaqvCGz2EhuhYH3ZQzzvp+5Ci8+4R7pgLlIk0Sxud+8XWCNDUOzhq; Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=mwi1.coffeenet.org) by feld.me with esmtp (Exim 4.77 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1Sgf3u-0001pf-5A; Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:44:27 -0500 Received: from feld@feld.me by mwi1.coffeenet.org (Archiveopteryx 3.1.4) with esmtpa id 1340037856-94480-94479/5/6; Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:44:16 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes References: <4FCF9333.70201@speakeasy.org> <4FCF9C07.2000607@FreeBSD.org> Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:44:16 -0500 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 From: Mark Felder Message-Id: In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Opera Mail/12.00 (FreeBSD) X-SA-Score: -1.5 Cc: Wojciech Puchar Subject: Re: Why Clang X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 16:44:28 -0000 On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:37:55 -0500, Wojciech Puchar wrote: > This tens or hundreds of thousands of work-hours could be spent far > better by getting latest gcc available on GPLv2 licence and start from > there, just improving it. We already have the latest available with GPLv2, which is very far behind and it requires GCC codebase experts to make any changes at all. This is equivalent to letting any random coder make major changes to OpenSSL -- you simply cannot afford to risk it. Yes, I noticed you showed a few benchmarks where Clang was slower. It's bound to be a bit slower with some test cases at first -- they're rounding out the features before going back for major optimizations. It won't be long and it will be sufficiently on par if not exceeding GCC's capabilities. Writing a compiler is no trivial task, and they've built the right framework and have a very active community. Listen, Apple has a MAJOR investment in Clang/LLVM. They simply would not allow major across-the-board speed regressions to happen during the release of iOS or OSX. They're going to throw tons of time and money to make it destroy GCC and target any ARCH they have the slightest interest in. Clang has a very bright future, so don't be so discouraged.