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

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 2/18/2022 10:59 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> 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.

????

VSI is already doing that by utilizing LLVM.

But the topic was "shoehorning the newer Fortran standards
into the old compiler".

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

Yes.

>>>> 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.

I don't expect that to happen.

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

That is what they say.

>> 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.

Maybe, but even if it does happen then it will take many years.

Arne