Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Michael S <already5chosen@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:12:37 +0200
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On Sun, 23 Mar 2025 11:25:14 +0000
bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:

> On 23/03/2025 08:50, Michael S wrote:
> > On Sun, 23 Mar 2025 01:34:54 +0000
> > bart <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
> >  =20
> >>
> >> It's strange: in one part of the computing world, the speed of
> >> building software is a very big deal. All sorts of efforts are
> >> going on to deal with it. Compilation speed for developers is
> >> always an issue. There is a general movement away from LLVM-based
> >> backends /because/ it is so slow.
> >> =20
> >=20
> > What "general movement" are you talking about?
> > I can't recollect any new* language for general-purpose computers
> > that is used by more than dozen* persons which is not based on LLVM
> > back end. Despite its undeniable slowness. =20
>=20
> There's Rust + Cranelift:
>=20
> "The goal of this project is to create an alternative codegen backend=20
> for the rust compiler based on Cranelift. This has the potential to=20
> improve compilation times in debug mode."
>=20

It looks like a schism. Since Rust is sort of religious movement,
schisms are inevitable part of it.

> There's Go which was never based on LLVM:
>=20
> "At the beginning of the project we considered using LLVM for gc but=20
> decided it was too large and slow to meet our performance goals."
>=20
> ('gc' is 'Go Compiler'. Maybe Go is older than 15 years?=20

Yes, it is. 17+.

> Still, LLVM=20
> seems to have been around

In 2007 LLVM was formally 7 y.o. but until 2005 it was a tiny project
with very little (or none?) payed workforce. I can't say it with
certainty, but it seems that LLVM didn't really become usable until
2008-2009.

> and was thought to be slow then.)
>=20

gollvm certainly exists and works.
Users that want to use go on something other than very few platforms
supported by Google's "self hosted" implementation appear to have two
main choices: gogcc and gollvm. I don't know which is chosen more often.

> And there's Zig:
>=20

Isn't current distribution of Zig based on LLVM?
Just wondering, the chance that Zig will fly by now approaches zero.

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3D39154513
>=20
> There are other's comments:
>=20
> "LLVM used to be hailed as a great thing, but with language projects=20
> such as Rust, Zig and others complaining it's bad and slow and
> they're moving away from it =E2=80=93 how bad is LLVM really?"
>=20
> Here's is a random quote from Reddit:
>=20
> "2 minutes is really good for a full build. 2 minutes is pretty bad
> for a one line change.
>=20
> I also quit my job recently because of their terrible infrastructure.=20
> All home-grown of course. A horrible mess of Python, C++ and Make.
>=20
> So demotivating. And nobody except me cared."
>=20
> TBH, for me 2 minutes would be really terrible even for a full build.
> So would 2 seconds! (How big was this executable?)
>=20