ErLLVM: LLVM backend for high performance Erlang

This backend has been merged in to the Erlang&#x2F;OTP master branch: <a href="https://github.com/erlang/otp/commit/9d46875b53ffb21bc55aec4a2c76472133ea5d1c" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;erlang&#x2F;otp&#x2F;commit&#x2F;9d46875b53ffb21bc55aec4...</a><p>If you&#x27;re interested in LLVM you might want to subscribe to LLVM Weekly (which I author). <a href="http://llvmweekly.org/issue/12" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;llvmweekly.org&#x2F;issue&#x2F;12</a>

I think I need some guidance in understanding this project. The typical LLVM-base compiler &#x27;stack&#x27; looks like this:<p><pre><code> [Front-end] -&gt; [LLVM AST] -&gt; [Back-end] </code></pre> Where the front end compiles your language of choice to LLVM&#x27;s AST format, and a back-end translates AST to machine code. All the really awesome code optimization stuff happens at the AST level before the back-end gets involved.<p>So is ErLLVM a back-end that emits Erlang (such that any front-end language can be translated to Erlang)? Or is it an LLVM <i>front-end</i> that compiles Erlang to LLVM AST? An in the latter case, if LLVM already targets ARM, why does ErLLVM need to do work related to ARM?

Can&#x27;t remember which talk it was from but I remember enjoying Joe Armstrong speaking about the importance of a language being &quot;correct&quot; rather than fast:<p><pre><code> The performance problem is solved. You just wait 20 years.</code></pre>

&quot;Currently, ErLLVM supports the AMD64 and x86 architectures. There is also some ongoing work for ARM.&quot;<p>Isn&#x27;t the whole idea of LLVM that you don&#x27;t need to support individual architectures, because LLVM can be separately compiled into whatever architecture you need?

I thought Erlang was already fast? Are there any before&#x2F;after benchmarks available post-LLVM?

Hopefully someone with more knowledge of all the moving parts can answer this: would this benefit Elixir in any way, considering it also compiles down to Beam or is it specifically for Erlang? I ask this because the documentation makes reference to first compiling to beam, and then compiling modules using LLVM.