61–70 of 209 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're talking about a C compiler and debugger. Lots of very technically knowledgable people shun IDEs and automated refactoring in that space.
Only in the UNIX world. In the game development world, embedded systems and desktops we like our IDEs.
This is a bit over the top. As the rest of the thread points out, GCC in general still generates faster code than LLVM. "What does it take to get LLVM as performant as GCC" talk from 2014 LLVM Developers' Meeting discusses details. http://llvm.org/devmtg/2014-10/Slides/Molloy-LLVM-Performant... "GCC versus LLVM performance analysis reveals the LLVM inliner 1) does not inline certain hot functions unless a high thresh…
Does it? http://imagine-rt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/c-compiler-benchmar...
Small benchmarks can go either way, but for large codebase (especially C++) inliner is more important than just about anything else. So GCC wins, because it has better inliner.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not clear that RMS is driven by ego. He's motivated by a very clear goal to keep free software free. Free as in freedom free. As for ESR, well, yup, that's an ego that is sufficient in size to have a gravitational pull. http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2000082800620OPCYKN
I think this is an unuseful definition of ego. I had a significant degree of contact with RMS in the period leading up to the launch of GNU, including being one of his roommates when he formally launched it, and I assure you he's very seriously ego driven. Are not his expounding etc. of his Free Software philosophy, a rather big thing as in a set of principles etc., the actions of a man very certain about himself? I…
Oh, he is certainly ego-driven, but not in the same way as Jobs was, for example. RMS does not put his person before everyone else, but he lives rather through his principles and tries to convince everyone why it makes sense to follow them. And he has a very solid rationale he has developed through the years, making him very articulated.
So this was a discussion in /r/linux last week about LLVM and GCC et al, so I'm just reposting my statements on why a world where GCC is irrelevant is bad: It takes little effort on Apples or Googles or Microsofts part to take advantage of an LLVM dominated world to close off their own changes to it and try to force developers to use their own proprietary LLVM distributions on their own operating systems. It stops ev…
I'm always confused by this stance. It presupposes that big companies like Apple and Google will at some point become bad actors in the opensource world. (They both contribute huge amounts of code). Even Microsoft is starting to open up their codebase with the release of huge parts of the .NET ecosystem. Frankly, I want the big boys on my side when it comes to opensource code. I want them to use the code I write. Usu…
Sun Microsystems basically grabbed BSD development by hiring up a lot of good people and running with it. It took a while for the various free BSD's to come into their own.
Basically, with "bsd licensed" software, if a big company hired up all the developers, they could take it proprietary and out-compete fork efforts.
I don't think it happens often, but it's not impossible, either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're talking about a C compiler and debugger. Lots of very technically knowledgable people shun IDEs and automated refactoring in that space.
Only in the UNIX world. In the game development world, embedded systems and desktops we like our IDEs.
Despite the inflexibility of RMS' arguments (they grate on me as much as anyone) I feel like his position on continuing to develop GCC without modern features like a fully exposed AST is necessary to keep the "moderate" position where it is. In other words, RMS' radical position is necessary for 'moderate' LLVM to exist. Otherwise we'd still be living in the Borland/Metrowerks/Microsoft world of the 90s - proprietary…
This is false--people are just as likely to respond to opposing arguments with rejection and ideological hardening. This is replicated in psychological studies. In my personal experience, the less the opposing position acknowledges the values of its opponents, the more likely it is to be rejected. Most people reason by mood affiliation and use argumentation as a social tool, so this should not be a surprise. I think…
Radicals have to be able to articulate their position in a way that is compelling and reasonable to a significant number of people in order for there to be a shift. But I think political progress is largely explained by this phenomenon.
This is a bit over the top. As the rest of the thread points out, GCC in general still generates faster code than LLVM. "What does it take to get LLVM as performant as GCC" talk from 2014 LLVM Developers' Meeting discusses details. http://llvm.org/devmtg/2014-10/Slides/Molloy-LLVM-Performant... "GCC versus LLVM performance analysis reveals the LLVM inliner 1) does not inline certain hot functions unless a high thresh…
So this was a discussion in /r/linux last week about LLVM and GCC et al, so I'm just reposting my statements on why a world where GCC is irrelevant is bad: It takes little effort on Apples or Googles or Microsofts part to take advantage of an LLVM dominated world to close off their own changes to it and try to force developers to use their own proprietary LLVM distributions on their own operating systems. It stops ev…
I'm always confused by this stance. It presupposes that big companies like Apple and Google will at some point become bad actors in the opensource world. (They both contribute huge amounts of code). Even Microsoft is starting to open up their codebase with the release of huge parts of the .NET ecosystem. Frankly, I want the big boys on my side when it comes to opensource code. I want them to use the code I write. Usu…
For example, see shader compilers for GPUs. How many open shader compilers do you see around? Is there any motivation to open them?
On the other side, during the 90's, we have seen many vendors come with new CPU ISAs, extensions of existing ISAs, new SOCs, etc. Many of them didn't have resources or will to write a new C compiler, so they wanted to use someting existing. They were willing to write new GCC backend - and GCC license basically forced them to be open. After this, there was no point in keeping ISA specification secret.
LLVM/clang does not have this effect. It pretty much rewards for being closed. So today, we have shitty (especially on ARM-SoCs) shader compilers for secret ISAs, and you aren't going to see their sources anytime soon.
So this was a discussion in /r/linux last week about LLVM and GCC et al, so I'm just reposting my statements on why a world where GCC is irrelevant is bad: It takes little effort on Apples or Googles or Microsofts part to take advantage of an LLVM dominated world to close off their own changes to it and try to force developers to use their own proprietary LLVM distributions on their own operating systems. It stops ev…
I'm always confused by this stance. It presupposes that big companies like Apple and Google will at some point become bad actors in the opensource world. (They both contribute huge amounts of code). Even Microsoft is starting to open up their codebase with the release of huge parts of the .NET ecosystem. Frankly, I want the big boys on my side when it comes to opensource code. I want them to use the code I write. Usu…
Apple and Google do not contribute code freely, nor do they contribute a significant amount of their code. The contributions are limited to areas in which an advantage exists. One only has to look at the machinations present in other development platforms to realize the threat. Consider what's happened with Java in recent years. Or look to Swift. Or to the entire Microsoft ecosystem which was built in part on a foundation of open source. BSD licensed code permeates the Windows environment; to ask "what's the concern" belies a rather stunning ignorance of Microsoft's behavior over the three prior decades.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. What's especially painful is RMS is basically saying "Hey folks, I want to block this until I can research the issue." And then his research is "I don't know anuything about this, can anybody tell me what LLDB is?" My guess is (based on his past statements) that he doesn't browse the web, or browses it through emacs sending mail to him (really!) and doesn't use search so he can't really find out what LLDB is. D…
Yes, RMS does not "browse the web" he has a server that runs a script sort of like wget or cURL.