Technorama

There is a battle of compilers waging, between the old stalwart GCC and the new LLVM compiler sponsored by Apple and Google. GCC is currently in the lead, but LLVM is fast catching up, and I predict in 2013 it will overtake GCC - after which, GCC will never recover its top spot again.

• FreeBSD is now compiled by LLVM by default
• 71% of Debian can be compiled by LLVM
• Apple use LLVM as their development tools

How long till Redhat or Ubuntu switch from GCC -> LLVM?

Ask the LLVM team why it exists, and they will tell you it's because GCC is not modular, it's not made of re-usable components, its a big lump, you take it all, or nothing. The absolutist stance has pushed away a lot of people and big companies like Apple and Google. (LLVM team explain in more detail.)

GCC's anti-interface, anti-library, anti-reusability has pushed a whole team of people to write their own compiler - and a very well designed one LLVM is. GCC have done this, to cloud the licensing IMHO. It's fair to say, this position has backfired for the GCC team - so what next?

GCC could remain top dog if:

• Meets the requirements the developers are looking for.
• Accepts those external stake holders on the steering committee.

-- Is it too late already though? Needs some rapprochement between the parties.

Visiting the Museum of London last weekend, I noticed they have hazardous pieces of plastic inserted into sockets - oops!  I'm going to email them and will update if they reply.

Labels: FatallyFlawed