But LLVM-C (i.e. C + llvm extensions) does do all the things you just described, plus it's a stable interface for programming. IR is unstable, and therefore uns

But LLVM-C (i.e. C + llvm extensions) does do all the things you just described, plus it's a stable interface for programming. IR is unstable, and therefore unsuitable as a source language for most projects. I say this as someone who writes an enormous amount of both assembly and llvm-c, and has considered and dismissed IR for exactly this reason.