mirror of
				https://github.com/c64scene-ar/llvm-6502.git
				synced 2025-11-03 14:21:30 +00:00 
			
		
		
		
	git-svn-id: https://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk@103219 91177308-0d34-0410-b5e6-96231b3b80d8
		
			
				
	
	
		
			48 lines
		
	
	
		
			2.2 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Plaintext
		
	
	
	
	
	
			
		
		
	
	
			48 lines
		
	
	
		
			2.2 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Plaintext
		
	
	
	
	
	
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 18:25:42 -0600
 | 
						|
From: Vikram S. Adve <vadve@cs.uiuc.edu>
 | 
						|
To: Chris Lattner <sabre@nondot.org>
 | 
						|
Subject: RE: LLVM Concerns...
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
> 1. Reference types
 | 
						|
>    Right now, I've spec'd out the language to have a pointer type, which
 | 
						|
>    works fine for lots of stuff... except that Java really has
 | 
						|
>    references: constrained pointers that cannot be manipulated: added and
 | 
						|
>    subtracted, moved, etc... Do we want to have a type like this?  It
 | 
						|
>    could be very nice for analysis (pointer always points to the start of
 | 
						|
>    an object, etc...) and more closely matches Java semantics.  The
 | 
						|
>    pointer type would be kept for C++ like semantics.  Through analysis,
 | 
						|
>    C++ pointers could be promoted to references in the LLVM
 | 
						|
>    representation.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
You're right, having references would be useful.  Even for C++ the *static*
 | 
						|
compiler could generate references instead of pointers with fairly
 | 
						|
straightforward analysis.  Let's include a reference type for now.  But I'm
 | 
						|
also really concerned that LLVM is becoming big and complex and (perhaps)
 | 
						|
too high-level.  After we get some initial performance results, we may have
 | 
						|
a clearer idea of what our goals should be and we should revisit this
 | 
						|
question then.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
> 2. Our "implicit" memory references in assembly language:
 | 
						|
>    After thinking about it, this model has two problems:
 | 
						|
>       A. If you do pointer analysis and realize that two stores are
 | 
						|
>          independent and can share the same memory source object,
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
not sure what you meant by "share the same memory source object"
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
> there is
 | 
						|
>          no way to represent this in either the bytecode or assembly.
 | 
						|
>       B. When parsing assembly/bytecode, we effectively have to do a full
 | 
						|
>          SSA generation/PHI node insertion pass to build the dependencies
 | 
						|
>          when we don't want the "pinned" representation.  This is not
 | 
						|
>          cool.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
I understand the concern.  But again, let's focus on the performance first
 | 
						|
and then look at the language design issues.  E.g., it would be good to know
 | 
						|
how big the bytecode files are before expanding them further.  I am pretty
 | 
						|
keen to explore the implications of LLVM for mobile devices.  Both bytecode
 | 
						|
size and power consumption are important to consider there.
 | 
						|
 | 
						|
--Vikram
 | 
						|
 |