> I think that future compiler and VM writers and FPGA soft-CPU authors -- should target this "abstracted instruction set"!
GNU lightning succeeds in what it sets out to do, which is to offer a simple and minimal JIT code-generator. It offers nothing in the way of optimisation, by design. Most projects looking for a code-generator are looking for something with great optimisation built-in, so they're not wrong to go with LLVM or the JVM rather than GNU lightning (or something similar like Mir [0][1]). I don't think the average compiler would gain much by targeting GNU lightning.
With all that said, GNU Guile, a Scheme interpreter, uses a fork of GNU lightning, insufferably named lightening. [3]
GNU lightning succeeds in what it sets out to do, which is to offer a simple and minimal JIT code-generator. It offers nothing in the way of optimisation, by design. Most projects looking for a code-generator are looking for something with great optimisation built-in, so they're not wrong to go with LLVM or the JVM rather than GNU lightning (or something similar like Mir [0][1]). I don't think the average compiler would gain much by targeting GNU lightning.
With all that said, GNU Guile, a Scheme interpreter, uses a fork of GNU lightning, insufferably named lightening. [3]
[0] https://github.com/vnmakarov/mir
[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lightning/2020-02/msg0001...
[2] https://wingolog.org/archives/2019/05/24/lightening-run-time...