On Mon, 2026-06-22 at 00:33 +0100, Maciej W. Rozycki via cctalk wrote: > > Original GCC was a plain RTL compiler, other internal > representations > were only retrofitted later on, in early 2000s. You are right in > that > their use enabled optimisations which were infeasible with RTL.
About forty years ago there were attempts to define UNCOL, the Universal Compiler-Oriented Language, as an intermediary between front ends and code generators. Ada attempted to define it using DIANA, or Distribute Intermediate Attribute Notation for Ada (IIRC that was the definition of the acronym). AFAIK, DIANA was never adopted. The gcc front-end to code-generator interface appears to solve the problem, at least for the spectrum of languages addressed.
