Re: Importing clang/LLVM into FreeBSD HEAD

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 3:13 PM, Bakul Shah <bakul_at_bitblocks.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 31 May 2010 12:33:18 MDT "M. Warner Losh" <imp_at_bsdimp.com>  wrote:
> >
>

...


>
> Can't speak for others but I am very appreciative of all the
> work put in enthusiastically by Roman and others to get clang
> into FreeBSD. Exciting to have a real alternative to gcc!
>
>


In software engineering , there is a concept : "Formal Technical Reviews" .

In my opinion , one of the best reviewers of a software is a compiler of its
language .
Having a second compiler in FreeBSD , will make it much better than the
present state .

My wish would be to pursue a language intersection of both CLang and GCC
compilers to be able to check their outputs .

If I could have sufficient power ( health , time , etc. ) , I even
want to try and make applicable one more compiler such as Portable C
Compiler ( which is available in ports ) .

Personally I am using two compilers ( Free Pascal and Delphi ) on a big
program , and I am obtaining very good results either as very useful
warnings or errors . In reality , to pursue such a multiple compiler usage
is really difficult , but end result is making efforts very fruitful .

I am using a similar technique for my Fortran programs . I can say that to
rely on a single compiler is not a very robust way of software development
after seeing quality of compiled programs : My policy is now "Never use a
single compiler without assuring that it is generating correct code when
compared to other compilers even though the current compiler is tested on
its test base ."  This is a result of so many combinations of  a language
usage that a test base can not cover but it may exist in a user program over
time .

This policy is developed by actual experiences .

>From these view points , workers on Clang adoption are making really a big
contribution to the FreeBSD project and to its users .


Thank you very much .


Mehmet Erol Sanliturk