Re: Merging Apple's Objective-C 2.0 compiler changes [LWN.net]

From:		Ian Lance Taylor <iant-AT-google.com>
To:		Manuel López-Ibáñez <lopezibanez-AT-gmail.com>
Subject:		Re: Merging Apple's Objective-C 2.0 compiler changes
Date:		Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:04:02 -0700
Message-ID:		<mcrsk1d2yx9.fsf@google.com>
Cc:		Jack Howarth <howarth-AT-bromo.med.uc.edu>, Paolo Bonzini <bonzini-AT-gnu.org>, Steven Bosscher <stevenb.gcc-AT-gmail.com>, Richard Kenner <kenner-AT-vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu>, Joe.Buck-AT-synopsys.com, clattner-AT-apple.com, dave.korn.cygwin-AT-gmail.com, gcc-AT-gnu.org, mikestump-AT-comcast.net, nicola.pero-AT-meta-innovation.com, richard.guenther-AT-gmail.com
Archive-link:		Article, Thread

Manuel López-Ibáñez <lopezibanez@gmail.com> writes:

> From a user-perspective, there are benefits on both clang->gcc and
> gcc->llvm. However, from what I know about the GCC project, I don't
> see yet how GCC developers can consider either more beneficial than
> the other.

It seems to me that at the present moment LLVM's frontends are better
than GCC's, and GCC's backends are better than LLVM's.  By this I mean
specifically that LLVM's frontends generate better diagnostics, whereas
GCC's backends generate code that has better runtime performance.  (LLVM
also appears to run faster, which is a good feature but not in my mind a
determining one.)  Therefore, I see a clear benefit to clang->gcc, but I
do not see a clear benefit to gcc->llvm.  This comment is of course
entirely independent of the licensing issues.

Ian

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