StackOverflow2013

Note that there are some explanatory texts on larger screens.

plurals

PO
text
Body
copied!<p>They differ in how expressive the low level machine type system is.</p> <p>The <a href="http://llvm.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">LLVM</a> machine is pretty expressive. The <a href="http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/c--/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">C--</a> machine on the other hand, puts a lot of responsibility on the language front end. Quoting from the <a href="http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/c--/faq.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">C-- FAQ</a>: <em>"simply, <a href="http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/c--/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">C--</a> has no high-level types---it does not even distinguish floating-point variables from integer variables. This model gives the front end total control of representation and type system"</em></p> <p>Also visually they look a lot different. <a href="http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/c--/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">C--</a> looks a lot like C, LLVM looks a lot like assembler.</p> <p>Pragmatically, LLVM has a lot more momentum right now. It has a JIT compiler, Apple is using it for <a href="http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Performance/Conceptual/OpenCL_MacProgGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">3D pipeline things</a> and people are using it to <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">connect to GCC</a> and all sorts of <a href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/Developer/LLVM" rel="nofollow noreferrer">weird</a> and <a href="http://dragonegg.llvm.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">wonderful</a> things. Someone called it "<a href="http://cliffhacks.blogspot.com/2007/03/experimenting-with-llvm.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">almost absurdly easy to work with</a>".</p> <p>On the other hand <a href="http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/c--/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">C--</a> is <em>much</em> smaller and probably easier to entirely comprehend. (I imagine a normal person with some dedication can fully understand <strong><em>all</em></strong> aspects of it.)</p>

Querying!

Guidance

An individual column

Larger individual text columns get their own page to allow for proper reading.

SQuiL has stopped working due to an internal error.

If you are curious you may find further information in the browser console, which is accessible through the devtools (F12).

Reload