LLVM 12.0 Delays Drag On With RC5 Now Shipping

[phoronix]

Phoronix: LLVM 12.0 Delays Drag On With RC5 Now Shipping

LLVM 12.0 was supposed to ship at the start of March but now more than one month later and some 6,660+ commits to LLVM 13.0 already, LLVM 12.0 has not yet shipped but on Wednesday 12.0.0-rc5 was issued...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=LLVM-12.0-rc5-Released

[ms178]

As there is one new test failure with RC5 over RC4, I guess there will be yet another RC before release.

[wizard69]

It isn’t “dragging on” but rather a commitment to get it right.

[slacka]

It isn’t “dragging on” but rather a commitment to get it right.

Exactly. These RC's have caught multiple infinite loops and incorrect code generation bugs. I'm grateful llvm has a highly competent release manager who cares more about a quality release than meeting an arbitrary deadline.

[ms178]

Exactly. These RC's have caught multiple infinite loops and incorrect code generation bugs. I'm grateful llvm has a highly competent release manager who cares more about a quality release than meeting an arbitrary deadline.

Speaking of quality, would it make sense for them to do CI/conformance/performance testing on a per merge request basis as Mesa is partly doing? I get it that this is somewhat a matter of ressources and that they don't embrace this Github/Gitlab-like workflow yet, but with so many companies relying on LLVM/Clang nowadays, there could be efforts to make the life of the release manager easier by better testing. I assume that this would also improve the stability of those living off llvm-git.

[Grinch]

It isn’t “dragging on” but rather a commitment to get it right.

While it's certainly the correct choice, this has become a pattern, indicating there's likely something they need to fix in their release schedule. LLVM 10 was a month late, LLVM 11 was 1 and 1/2 months late, and LLVM 12 is already over a month late.