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> GCC is almost literally nonexistent I believe that you are referring to the old LLVM modularity? That is old news. GCC is now (reportedly¹) better in C++20

by teddyh 4y ago

> GCC is almost literally nonexistent I believe that you are referring to the old LLVM modularity? That is old news. GCC is now (reportedly¹) better in C++20 standard compliance, and this will probably not change, since, (reportedly²) both Google and Apple have moved away from LLVM involvement. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653685 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32924033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32924033

mhh__ 4y ago
Not particularly. I don't really care about C++ compliance but rather fundamental new algorithms and optimizations in the backend. When I read papers on new compiler techniques it's never GCC getting the implementation, this saddens me but it's true.
mhh__ 4y ago
The points I made in the reply to the first link still stand, Although things are actually improving.
lifthrasiir 4y ago
> [...] this will probably not change, since, (reportedly) both Google and Apple have moved away from LLVM involvement. Correction: according to what you've linked, it is not LLVM but clang. This correction would be extremely important for my reply. I can't see how is that a good news for GCC. This (and other incidents) suggests that both companies have lost interest in investing the future of C++, and they were already building their own languages for a long time. You can argue that they wanted to bend the standard and implementations as they see fit---and it's partly true, otherwise why would you want to join at all---but it's probably more likely that C++ is becoming irrelevant at least in some applications. And if the language is made irrelevant, a better standard compliance means nothing.
- teddyh 4y ago
  Perhaps not, but even if true, this was not, then, any fault of GCC, which was the topic at hand.
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    Note that the topic in hand i.e. mentioned in my assertion is compiler research
justapassenger 4y ago
> Google and Apple have moved away from LLVM involvement LLVM is very much alive at all big tech, to my best knowledge. It's C++ that's dying there (and I say - good riddance).
- cyber_kinetist 4y ago
  Exactly, all the later languages that were made to replace C++ (Swift, Rust, Zig) all rely on LLVM, so it has become a much more important project than in the past. (And I'll bet Google's new Carbon language will also rely on LLVM.) It's just that it's so hard and time-consuming to write a compiler backend with all the latest optimization techniques, and GCC's backend isn't as much as flexible than what LLVM brings to the table.
314 4y ago
For compiler research LLVM has a good external API and it is easy to add in new passes without having to fight the rest of the code-base.

by teddyh 4y ago

mhh__ 4y ago

Not particularly. I don't really care about C++ compliance but rather fundamental new algorithms and optimizations in the backend. When I read papers on new compiler techniques it's never GCC getting the implementation, this saddens me but it's true.

mhh__ 4y ago

The points I made in the reply to the first link still stand, Although things are actually improving.

lifthrasiir 4y ago

> [...] this will probably not change, since, (reportedly) both Google and Apple have moved away from LLVM involvement. Correction: according to what you've linked, it is not LLVM but clang. This correction would be extremely important for my reply. I can't see how is that a good news for GCC. This (and other incidents) suggests that both companies have lost interest in investing the future of C++, and they were already building their own languages for a long time. You can argue that they wanted to bend the standard and implementations as they see fit---and it's partly true, otherwise why would you want to join at all---but it's probably more likely that C++ is becoming irrelevant at least in some applications. And if the language is made irrelevant, a better standard compliance means nothing.

teddyh 4y ago
Perhaps not, but even if true, this was not, then, any fault of GCC, which was the topic at hand.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  Note that the topic in hand i.e. mentioned in my assertion is compiler research

justapassenger 4y ago

> Google and Apple have moved away from LLVM involvement LLVM is very much alive at all big tech, to my best knowledge. It's C++ that's dying there (and I say - good riddance).

cyber_kinetist 4y ago
Exactly, all the later languages that were made to replace C++ (Swift, Rust, Zig) all rely on LLVM, so it has become a much more important project than in the past. (And I'll bet Google's new Carbon language will also rely on LLVM.) It's just that it's so hard and time-consuming to write a compiler backend with all the latest optimization techniques, and GCC's backend isn't as much as flexible than what LLVM brings to the table.

314 4y ago

For compiler research LLVM has a good external API and it is easy to add in new passes without having to fight the rest of the code-base.