- <p>Currently, there isn't much. LLVM supports an intermediate representation
- which is useful for code representation but will not support the high level
- (abstract syntax tree) representation needed by most compilers. There are no
- facilities for lexical nor semantic analysis. There is, however, a <i>mostly
- implemented</i> configuration-driven
- <a href="CompilerDriver.html">compiler driver</a> which simplifies the task
- of running optimizations, linking, and executable generation.</p>
+<p>Your compiler front-end will communicate with LLVM by creating a module in
+ the LLVM intermediate representation (IR) format. Assuming you want to write
+ your language's compiler in the language itself (rather than C++), there are
+ 3 major ways to tackle generating LLVM IR from a front-end:</p>
+
+<ul>
+ <li><strong>Call into the LLVM libraries code using your language's FFI
+ (foreign function interface).</strong>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li><em>for:</em> best tracks changes to the LLVM IR, .ll syntax, and .bc
+ format</li>
+
+ <li><em>for:</em> enables running LLVM optimization passes without a
+ emit/parse overhead</li>
+
+ <li><em>for:</em> adapts well to a JIT context</li>
+
+ <li><em>against:</em> lots of ugly glue code to write</li>
+ </ul></li>
+
+ <li> <strong>Emit LLVM assembly from your compiler's native language.</strong>
+ <ul>
+ <li><em>for:</em> very straightforward to get started</li>
+
+ <li><em>against:</em> the .ll parser is slower than the bitcode reader
+ when interfacing to the middle end</li>
+
+ <li><em>against:</em> you'll have to re-engineer the LLVM IR object model
+ and asm writer in your language</li>
+
+ <li><em>against:</em> it may be harder to track changes to the IR</li>
+ </ul></li>
+
+ <li><strong>Emit LLVM bitcode from your compiler's native language.</strong>
+
+ <ul>
+ <li><em>for:</em> can use the more-efficient bitcode reader when
+ interfacing to the middle end</li>
+
+ <li><em>against:</em> you'll have to re-engineer the LLVM IR object
+ model and bitcode writer in your language</li>
+
+ <li><em>against:</em> it may be harder to track changes to the IR</li>
+ </ul></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>If you go with the first option, the C bindings in include/llvm-c should help
+ a lot, since most languages have strong support for interfacing with C. The
+ most common hurdle with calling C from managed code is interfacing with the
+ garbage collector. The C interface was designed to require very little memory
+ management, and so is straightforward in this regard.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="question">
+<p><a name="langhlsupp">What support is there for a higher level source language
+ constructs for building a compiler?</a></p>