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Software Engineering

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  • This is good, but I'd add that there is a tradeoff when determining which IR to use: using C as an IR makes some things easier and other things harder, when compared to, say, x86 assembly language. The choice is even more significant when choosing between, say, Java language code and Java bytecode, as there are many more operations that only exist in one or the other language. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 14:21
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    But X86 assembly language makes a poor IR when targeting an ARM or PPC core! All things are a tradeoff in engineering, thats why they call it Engineering. One would hope that the possibilities of the Java bytecode were a strict superset of the possibilities of the Java language, and that this is generally true as you get closer to the metal irrespective of toolchain and where you inject the IR. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 14:29
  • Oh, I totally agree: my comment was in response to your final paragraph questioning why you'd ever output bytecode or some lower-level thing -- sometimes you do need the lower level. (In Java specifically, there are a lot of useful things you can do with bytecode that you can't do in the Java language itself.) Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 16:38
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    I don't disagree, but there is a cost to using an IR closer to the metal, not only in reduced generality, but in the fact that you usually end up responsible for more of the really annoying low level optimisation. The fact that we generally these days think in terms of optimising algorithm choice rather then implementation is a reflection on just how far compilers have come, sometimes you have to go really close to the metal in these things, but think twice before throwing away the compilers ability to optimise by using too low level an IR. Commented Nov 29, 2017 at 16:58
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    "they are usually happier working in marketing" Catty, but funny. Commented Dec 1, 2017 at 2:40