[Info-vax] And another one bites the dust....

[Dan Cross]

In article <620fb853$0$693$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk>,
Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>On 2/18/2022 10:12 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>> In article <620e5870$0$701$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk>,
>> Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>>> On 2/17/2022 5:28 AM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
>>>> In article <919fe330-a0dc-4784-bd2e-edea99790dc0n at googlegroups.com>,
>>>> "dthi... at gmail.com" <dthittner at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>> VSI Fortran is pretty much just rebranded HPE Fortran (FORTRAN-95
>>>>> standard, and not a complete implementation of it either). Later FORTRAN
>>>>> standards (2003, 2008, 2108) have fully embraced object oriented code
>>>>> practices and C interoperability.
>>>>
>>>> Isn't there supposed to be a much more modern, FLANG-based Fortran
>>>> compiler from VSI (presumably only) on x86?
>>>>
>>>> If so, when?
>>>
>>> VSI has stated their intention to go with flang. Which is really saying
>>> that they have no intention of shoehorning the newer Fortran standards
>>> into the old compiler. Which makes sense.
>> 
>> Not really. The old DEC GEM compilers were super cool.
>
>The cost.

Which cost?  Bolting on a backend for x86_64 wouldn't be that
hard: they already have backends for VAX, MIPS, Alpha, and
Itanium.

Keeping up with evolving language standards?  Yeah, that's an
issue.

>>> And since it will be LLVM based then it must be x86-64 only.
>> 
>> Why do you say that? Just in the sense that they won't
>> backport to OpenVMS/Itanium or Alpha?  LLVM has backends
>> for non-x86 architectures.  (If I were VSI, I'd be
>> getting a jump on ports to ARM and RISC-V now.)
>
>I don't see flang/LLVM support Itanium or Alpha.

Alpha support was dropped back in 2011:
https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/commit/4c9fca99c9a6734bb33c34aeaf40b71c4002757e

IA-64 was removed back in 2009.

Bringing either back would probably be a pretty big lift,
but with commercial support, I imagine the LLVM folks would
be fine with it.  There's an MC68k backend, afterall.

But if VSI is cool with GEM on Alpha/Itanium, and LLVM on
x86_64, I guess that's their business.

>Maybe ARM or RISC-V some day in the future.

It seems clear that there's an architectural shift away
from x86 happening.  Best to lay the groundwork now to
avoid being caught out.

	- Dan C.