Re: [Vala] GSOC Idea: LLVM Backend?

[Jim Nelson <jim yorba org>]

Kenny,

I'm not on the Vala team, so take the following only as the opinion of 
a long-term Vala coder.

I don't find a LLVM code generator for valac to be very exciting. 
 Even if you could complete an LLVM generator this summer, I'd be 
highly hesitant to move a project like Shotwell or Geary to it until it 
had had a lot of time to mature.

I have to echo a comment pancake makes elsewhere about Vala's stability 
compared to its age.  My complaints about the compiler are not about 
the way it generates code, but rather the problems it has trying to do 
it.  For example:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=684742
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=543189

and this one, which could be a GSoC project unto itself: 
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=609901

I would love it if you spent a little time examining the Vala Bugzilla 
list and came up with a list of tickets you'd like to attack.  As GSoC 
would like for this to be a project of some kind, I suggest framing it 
as improving the Vala compiler.  Not only does this have high value 
for the community today, but taking this approach means your 
improvements can be submitted in chunks and are therefore more likely 
to land in master.

-- Jim

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 9:13 PM, Kenny Micklas <kmicklas gmail com> 
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am a student at Brown University interested in participating in 
> Google
> Summer of Code. I am a Vala enthusiast and I have always been 
> interested in
> the idea of writing an LLVM code generator for valac. The principle
> benefits of this would be decoupling Vala from C, increased 
> flexibility in
> the generated code, vastly better compile times, and potentially 
> better
> runtime performance too.
>
> I know this is not one of the suggested GSOC ideas for GNOME, but I 
> was
> wondering if the Vala team would think this is a good project, and 
> whether
> or not there would be an appropriate mentor. If so, I will write up a 
> full
> proposal for GSOC.
>
> Thanks,
> Ken Micklas
> _______________________________________________
> vala-list mailing list
> vala-list gnome org
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/vala-list