llvm.txt (3417B)
1 =========== 2 QBE vs LLVM 3 =========== 4 5 6 Both QBE and LLVM are compiler backends using an SSA 7 representation. This document will explain why LLVM 8 does not make QBE a redundant project. Obviously, 9 everything following is biased, because written by me. 10 11 - Scope 12 ------- 13 14 QBE is a much smaller scale project with different goals 15 than LLVM. 16 17 * QBE is for amateur language designers. 18 19 It does not address all the problems faced when 20 conceiving an industry-grade language. If you are 21 toying with some language ideas, using LLVM will 22 be like hauling your backpack with a truck, but 23 using QBE will feel more like riding a bicycle. 24 25 * QBE is about the first 70%, not the last 30%. 26 27 It attempts to pinpoint, in the extremely vast 28 compilation literature, the optimizations that get 29 you 70% of the performance in 10% of the code of 30 full blown compilers. 31 32 For example, copy propagation on SSA form is 33 implemented in 160 lines of code in QBE! 34 35 * QBE is extremely hackable. 36 37 First, it is, and will remain, a small project 38 (less than 8 kloc). Second, it is programmed in 39 non-fancy C99 without any dependencies. Third, 40 it is able to dump the IL and debug information in 41 a uniform format after each pass. 42 43 On my Core 2 Duo machine, QBE compiles in half a 44 second (without optimizations). 45 46 - Features 47 ---------- 48 49 LLVM is definitely more packed with features, but there 50 are a few things provided in QBE to consider. 51 52 * LLVM does NOT provide full C compatibility for you. 53 54 In more technical terms, any language that provides 55 good C compatibility and uses LLVM as a backend 56 needs to reimplement large chunks of the ABI in 57 its frontend! This well known issue in the LLVM 58 community causes a great deal of duplication 59 and bugs. 60 61 Implementing a complete C ABI (with struct arguments 62 and returns) is incredibly tricky, and not really 63 a lot of fun. QBE provides you with IL operations 64 to call in (and be called by) C with no pain. 65 Moreover the ABI implementation in QBE has been 66 thoroughly tested by fuzzing and manual tests. 67 68 * LLVM IL is more cluttered with memory operations. 69 70 Implementing SSA construction is hard. To save its 71 users from having to implement it, LLVM provides 72 stack slots. This means that one increment of 73 a variable `v` will be composed of three LLVM 74 instructions: one load, one add, and one store. 75 76 QBE provides simple non-SSA temporaries, so 77 incrementing `v` is simply done with one instruction 78 `%v =w add %v, 1`. 79 80 This could seem cosmetic, but dividing the size of 81 the IL by three makes it easier for the frontend 82 writers to spot bugs in the generated code. 83 84 * LLVM IL is more cluttered with type annotations and 85 casts. 86 87 For the sake of advanced optimizations and 88 correctness, LLVM has complex IL types. However, 89 only a few types are really first class and many 90 operations of source languages require casts to be 91 compiled. 92 93 Because QBE makes a much lighter use of types, the 94 IL is more readable and shorter. It can of course be 95 argued back that the correctness of QBE is jeopardized, 96 but remember that, in practice, the large amount 97 of casts necessary in LLVM IL is undermining the 98 overall effectiveness of the type system.