Re: [RFC] building postgres with meson

Thomas Munro <thomas(dot)munro(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> ... The interesting thing about 16.1 is that you can invoke it
> as xlclang to get the new clang frontend and, I think, possibly use
> more clang/gcc-ish compiler switches[2].
> [2] https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/xl-c-and-cpp-aix/16.1?topic=new-clang-based-front-end

Ho, that's an earful ;-). Though I wonder whether that frontend
hides the AIX-specific linking issues you mentioned. (Also, although
I see /opt/IBM/xlc/16.1.0/ on gcc119, there's no xlclang there.
So whether we have useful access to it right now is unclear.)

This plays into something that was nagging at me while I wrote my
upthread screed about not giving up on non-gcc/clang compilers:
are those compilers outcompeting all the proprietary ones, to the
extent that the latter will be dead soon anyway? I think Microsoft
is rich enough and stubborn enough to keep on developing MSVC no
matter what, but other compiler vendors may see the handwriting
on the wall. Writing C compilers can't be a growth industry these
days.

regards, tom lane