Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica) [LWN.net]

Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica)

Posted Nov 13, 2008 17:15 UTC (Thu) by saffroy (guest, #43999)
Parent article: Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica)

"Another important bonus of using Clang and LLVM instead of GCC is that the former is better able to identify and articulate where problems are in code. The intermediate format it uses is much closer to the original code, so it can tell developers a lot of things that GCC cannot."

To me, this is a much more important feature than compiler speed. The usual C error messages can be so painfully cryptic, even for trivial stuff.

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Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica)

Posted Nov 13, 2008 19:43 UTC (Thu) by asamardzic (guest, #27161) [Link] (4 responses)

The usual C error messages can be so painfully cryptic, even for trivial stuff.

Heh - and how about C++ error messages, especially when so called "template meta-programming" crap employed? Although, I guess no compiler could emit sane error messages there...

Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica)

Posted Nov 13, 2008 20:24 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (3 responses)

The problem with C++ error messages is that the compiler isn't told enough about the library programmer's intentions for it to explain usage problems to users of the library. A new feature of C++09, due out next year, called "concepts", will enable library writers to tell the compiler enough so it can produce short, helpful error messages for mistakes in calls to the library.

Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica)

Posted Nov 14, 2008 0:14 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

unfortunantly the standards track is runninng slowly, the new standrd probably won't make it out next year

Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica) [offtopci]

Posted Nov 20, 2008 17:34 UTC (Thu) by Frej (guest, #4165) [Link] (1 responses)

I keep wondering why they called it concepts instead of interfaces?

Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica) [offtopci]

Posted Nov 20, 2008 22:58 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

It's a term from the STL, which predates Java, where it's not an interface
so much as a set of behavioral guarantees: I'm fairly sure that a Java
interface couldn't express what an STL concept can. (Now I will shut up
and let ncm, an actual C++ expert rather than a poseur like me, tell me
I'm full of crap. I expect I am.)

Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica)

Posted Nov 13, 2008 20:53 UTC (Thu) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

To me, the more interesting thing about clang is, due to its library nature, it should encourage and facilitate tighter integration with development tools to show problems in a more more intuitive way.

Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica)

Posted Nov 13, 2008 23:21 UTC (Thu) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] (1 responses)

Hmm, I don't see a problem with gcc's error messages. Maybe this is also
because I'm used to them and know what they mean.
OTOH when I saw MSVC error messages these seemed very cryptic to me.
I'd say it's a matter of being used to them or not.

Alex

P.S. yes, template error messages are more or less unreadable

Things that go Clang in the night: LLVM 2.4 released (ars technica)

Posted Nov 14, 2008 8:29 UTC (Fri) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link]

With a bit of practice even GCC's template errors are readible. You do need to upgrade your internal parser a bit though :)