Re:New SSA Back End for the Go Compiler (2015)
by geodel on Saturday April 02, 2016 @04:39PM
(#11413306)
> Remember the SSA backend of Go was slower than the normal go compiler for the vast majority of it's life as well.
Go 1.7 in August will be first release with SSA backend. So I do not understand what is that vast majority of life besides development phase of 1 year or so.
> In any case, people like to build shiny new things they think they can do better at, instead of fixing things that are, in actuality, probably better for what they want but need a little work.
I agree with that. It could just be a comment on our society.
> I can think of a lot of good reasons to write their compiler in go, and not use LLVM. Technical reasons are ... not any of them :)
I think goroutine and segmented stacks support was mentioned as technical reason.
Remember the SSA backend of Go was slower than the normal go compiler for the vast majority of it's life as well.
In any case, people like to build shiny new things they think they can do better at, instead of fixing things that are, in actuality, probably better for what they want but need a little work.
The truth is that there is no magic in building good compilers, so it's not like anyone comes along, waves a wand, and produces a compiler that is X times faster or better than anyone else's.
I can think of a lot of good reasons to write their compiler in go, and not use LLVM. Technical reasons are ... not any of them :)