Re: [BLACKBOX] Seasoned Linux.

From: [at]} <Norayr>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 04:37:36 +0400

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>From that point of view
> it may be a safer approach to use the Oberon-to-C translation and then
> let the gcc do the rest.
>
> I know it sounds dirty. But it may prove unrealistic to develop and
> maintain native backends.

No, it's not.
Compiler is a merely translator which gets source code of the human
formal language which describes a program, and outputs a binary executable.
Of course, it is better to avoid third party tools dependencies. Even
fpc sometimes affected by "GNU make" bugs. They may use internal
assembler, they may use internal linker, but using their own make is too
much. In the real world it is almost impossible to not have external
dependencies.
On the other hand, it does not mean, that we should not be careful and
it is good to avoid that kind of dependencies whenever reasonable and
feasible.

For now, it is very nice to have via-C translators. I personally feel
control and composure because I know, I can develop by using technology
I love on almost any hardware I face, thanks to oo2c and Ofront creators.
oo2c author started native x86 backend once. Yes, oo2c is a real
compiler, it has an intermediate representation, it optimizes, and it
has backend which generates low level C code, very similar to assembler
So, he give up the work with x86 backend, because there was no practical
sense. May, be, only compilation speed would be better, currently it's
slow because of gcc's slowness. But the compiler itself, runtime checks,
the library, are quite impressive.
So, having a C backend for a compiler brings a very strong advantage -
portability, and very weak drawbacks - compilation speed mostly, code is
more fat, than it could be, memory usage could be smaller, but this does
not compare with the advantages we get.
I believe, it is impossible to get something and not loose something.
Even laws of thermodynamics tell so. They also tell that every task
could have an optimal solution. I'm not a physicist, just weakly
remember something, so, don't be cruel if I messed :)
I think, that via-C compilation is an optimal solution in a number of
tasks and areas.

Sincerely,
Norayr





On 01/13/11 04:07, Wojtek Skulski wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011, Norayr Chilingarian wrote:
>
>> c) in case of BlackBox - write several native backends for different
>> CPU's
>
> I just want to warn you that embedded CPUs are maybe a little different
> from i386 because there are bugs in their silicon. For example, the
> Blackfin BF533 is only supported by Analog Devices' ucLinux team from
> silicon revision 0.3 and up. Two earlier silicon revisions were too
> buggy for the ucLinux compiler team.
>
> Those guys are embedded in the company's environment and thus they know
> their silicon. It may be very labor-intensive to repeat their work based
> on the data sheets and published silicon errata. From that point of view
> it may be a safer approach to use the Oberon-to-C translation and then
> let the gcc do the rest.
>
> I know it sounds dirty. But it may prove unrealistic to develop and
> maintain native backends.
>
> I somehow feel it would be more realistic to define an Oberon-friendly
> compatibility layer which would only depend on the Linux kernel
> independent from the CPU. Then address all the work to that
> compatibility layer using gcc. In such a way all the silicon
> dependencies will be handled by the native teams at Analog Devices,
> Texas Instruments, Freescale, etc. It is simply not possible to
> duplicate their work. They have insider knowledge which outsiders are
> very unlikely to gain.
>
>
> Wojtek
>
>
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Received on Thu Jan 13 2011 - 01:37:36 UTC