4 ms·

LLVM has become a sweathog, time to start over

23 points by noch 5y ago

OldGoodNewBad 5y ago
Yikes I became dumber by reading that. Sounds like sour grapes, not sure why. He doesn’t even bother to prove any of his assertions.
- gpderetta 5y ago
  Must be some social experiment. Machine generated?
  - OldGoodNewBad 5y ago
    This is why Urbit is rapidly becoming more attractive than the Internet. Can’t waste $75 per post.
  - jandrese 5y ago
    I am also suspicious. The way the topic shifts seemingly at random is very common with GPT generated text. It has several correct technical details but they don't support a central thesis, another telltale sign of a GAN in use.
    - mamcx 5y ago
      It read sensible to me, but I'm not a native speaker, so maybe the writer is neither one?
- malux85 5y ago
  I stopped reading when they said its architecture should be more like Photoshop. This made me actually LOL. Has the author ever tried coding a photoshop plugin? Or read a PSD file from scratch, its a notoriously poor interface, bogged by bad legacy decisions and duct tape and string quick-fixes. The PSD file format is a meme and prime example of garbage programming. LLVM does use a plugin architecture, that’s what the whole IR system is. Comparing LLVMs architecture to needing to have plugins “Like Photoshop” is like saying the Starship Enterprise should have more rope because it can’t pull this donkey cart.
  - OldGoodNewBad 5y ago
    As the other poster says, it’s a bot.
- kkz 5y ago
  I made the mistake to read a few other posts on that site, I feel my brain melting. What garbage.
- mamcx 5y ago
  I read it, and is not that bad, in fact the points it make are probably as close as non-controversial in how make a fast compiler. And LLVM is certainly major slow in the compiling pipeline. And very complex at it. What is unclear is how design "a photoshop-like plugin architecture" that allow to do all the optimizations it have, ie: How much the complexity of LLVM is related to the need to intermix all the optimizations and IF is possible to modularize them to the extend to make a lean core? (A better way to say the same is that it must be. like the nano pass framework, that it have more pedigree in this case than use of photoshop :;)
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    https://nanopass.org/ https://nanopass.org/
- LinAGKar 5y ago
  And which Intel Instruction set is he talking about? They have made several. x86 is the most popular, but it's anything but simple.
watwatwat2345 5y ago
This is the dumbest thing I have read in a while. Rants about LLVM to then give a completely unrelated story about cache? Yes, I signed up just for this.
genjipress 5y ago
I read this twice and I'm not really sure what's being asserted here. I got the impression there's conflation here between LLVM the project (which indeed is quite large) and what LLVM actually does when it generates code.
- jandrese 5y ago
  I think he is complaining that it take too long to compile LLVM itself because his CPU only has 32MB of cache.
mwfunk 5y ago
If someone's going to whip out ancient slang like 'sweathog', at least use it right. It's either an overpaid/underworked caricature of a union worker used in anti-union propaganda, or it's the gang from Welcome Back Kotter. That's pretty much it. Correction: also a band from 1971.
ianlevesque 5y ago
There was actually a really good push to both optimize LLVM and prevent regressions last year. See https://www.npopov.com/2020/05/10/Make-LLVM-fast-again.html https://www.npopov.com/2020/05/10/Make-LLVM-fast-again.html
b3morales 5y ago
The headline may or may not be true, but this essay is a bizarre mishmash of superficialities and non sequiturs, with a dash of "anyone could rewrite it better" thrown in.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Consensus is that it's a bot. AI may be capable of slapping grammatically correct sentences together, and even getting a kind of grouping onna topic. Actually arranging ideas as an argument and adding fresh thought will be a stickier wicket.
  - b3morales 5y ago
    Hmm, I guess that's possible, but it seems a little strange given this website is attached to a GitHub repo for what seems to be a real (albeit also weird) programming language. The langauge pitch page was posted earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27287989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27287989

23 points by noch 5y ago

Yikes I became dumber by reading that. Sounds like sour grapes, not sure why. He doesn’t even bother to prove any of his assertions.

gpderetta 5y ago
Must be some social experiment. Machine generated?
- OldGoodNewBad 5y ago
  This is why Urbit is rapidly becoming more attractive than the Internet. Can’t waste $75 per post.
- jandrese 5y ago
  I am also suspicious. The way the topic shifts seemingly at random is very common with GPT generated text. It has several correct technical details but they don't support a central thesis, another telltale sign of a GAN in use.
  - mamcx 5y ago
    It read sensible to me, but I'm not a native speaker, so maybe the writer is neither one?
malux85 5y ago
I stopped reading when they said its architecture should be more like Photoshop. This made me actually LOL. Has the author ever tried coding a photoshop plugin? Or read a PSD file from scratch, its a notoriously poor interface, bogged by bad legacy decisions and duct tape and string quick-fixes. The PSD file format is a meme and prime example of garbage programming. LLVM does use a plugin architecture, that’s what the whole IR system is. Comparing LLVMs architecture to needing to have plugins “Like Photoshop” is like saying the Starship Enterprise should have more rope because it can’t pull this donkey cart.
- OldGoodNewBad 5y ago
  As the other poster says, it’s a bot.
kkz 5y ago
I made the mistake to read a few other posts on that site, I feel my brain melting. What garbage.
mamcx 5y ago
I read it, and is not that bad, in fact the points it make are probably as close as non-controversial in how make a fast compiler. And LLVM is certainly major slow in the compiling pipeline. And very complex at it. What is unclear is how design "a photoshop-like plugin architecture" that allow to do all the optimizations it have, ie: How much the complexity of LLVM is related to the need to intermix all the optimizations and IF is possible to modularize them to the extend to make a lean core? (A better way to say the same is that it must be. like the nano pass framework, that it have more pedigree in this case than use of photoshop :;)
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  https://nanopass.org/ https://nanopass.org/
LinAGKar 5y ago
And which Intel Instruction set is he talking about? They have made several. x86 is the most popular, but it's anything but simple.

watwatwat2345 5y ago

This is the dumbest thing I have read in a while. Rants about LLVM to then give a completely unrelated story about cache? Yes, I signed up just for this.

genjipress 5y ago

I read this twice and I'm not really sure what's being asserted here. I got the impression there's conflation here between LLVM the project (which indeed is quite large) and what LLVM actually does when it generates code.

jandrese 5y ago
I think he is complaining that it take too long to compile LLVM itself because his CPU only has 32MB of cache.

mwfunk 5y ago

If someone's going to whip out ancient slang like 'sweathog', at least use it right. It's either an overpaid/underworked caricature of a union worker used in anti-union propaganda, or it's the gang from Welcome Back Kotter. That's pretty much it. Correction: also a band from 1971.

ianlevesque 5y ago

There was actually a really good push to both optimize LLVM and prevent regressions last year. See https://www.npopov.com/2020/05/10/Make-LLVM-fast-again.html https://www.npopov.com/2020/05/10/Make-LLVM-fast-again.html

b3morales 5y ago

The headline may or may not be true, but this essay is a bizarre mishmash of superficialities and non sequiturs, with a dash of "anyone could rewrite it better" thrown in.

smitty1e 5y ago
Consensus is that it's a bot. AI may be capable of slapping grammatically correct sentences together, and even getting a kind of grouping onna topic. Actually arranging ideas as an argument and adding fresh thought will be a stickier wicket.
- b3morales 5y ago
  Hmm, I guess that's possible, but it seems a little strange given this website is attached to a GitHub repo for what seems to be a real (albeit also weird) programming language. The langauge pitch page was posted earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27287989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27287989