[Arm-netbook] [review] SoC proposal

[Vladimir Pantelic]

lkcl luke wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Vladimir Pantelic<vladoman at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>  Tony Garnock-Jones wrote:
>>>  On 02/09/2012 11:56 AM, Gordan Bobic wrote:
>>>>    The downside is that you need a damn good compiler to leverage it - and
>>>>    GCC isn't it.
>>>
>>>  This is where Nile/Gezira come in: you actually need more than a damn
>>>  good compiler, you need a better language - and C isn't it.
>>
>>  So, to sum it up, we have many nonstandard tensilica VLIW cores that we
>>  will not program with gcc but with some other compiler and not using C
>>  but some other language, but we will port existing Linux kernel and
>>  userland to it quickly, right? :) :) :) let's go! :)
>
>   :)
>
>   no, completely and utterly wrong!
>
>   1) the linux kernel, toolchain etc. (and buildroot and a couple of
> other embedded environments) have already been done.
>
>   2) tensilica have a [proprietary] language "translator" (look it up
> on wikipedia) which translates c and c++ into VLIW-aware c and
> VLIW-aware c++ which the *STANDARD* gcc toolchain (that tensilica have
> *ALREADY* completed) understands perfectly.
>
>   3) if the option of adding the VLIW extensions is too complex for
> good-old free software land to comprehend, then we just leave them
> out, and find another way to get the required performance.
>
>   that's not all - please do not go misunderstanding what i've written
> there [like "oh it's a proprietary VLIW compiler therefore it will
> stay that way therefore this project will fail"] - i haven't even got
> into negotiations yet with their applications engineer (he's back next
> week) in order to raise the possibility of them releasing the VLIW
> language-translator as a Free Software Project.

I did not misunderstand what you have written, Nile/Gezira was
mentioned by Tony above, not you. I was just so free to combine
that with what you wrote :)