Re: [Caml-list] whither portability?

[Raoul Duke <raould@gmail.com>]

> Right now, LLVM IR (of which the bitcode is a serialization) is not
> flexible enough to express the invariants and metadata required
> for the OCaml GC to function[1]. Even if someone released the necessary,
> highly nontrivial changes to both LLVM and OCaml today, it would take
> many months for them to be reviewed, merged & propagated into Apple's
> LLVM fork--all for a small improvement in a select few numeric workloads
> that can benefit from using the instruction selector tailored for
> the particular device, and a substantial reduction in being able to
> debug your code[2].

Thanks for the details. I am (only) a little bit aware of the history
of LLVM vs. GCs, so I can believe what you report. I would much prefer
to be able to debug, as well.

(Given Apple, I wouldn't be surprised if an a year they required
bitcode, however.)