[Qt-creator] wip clang status

[André Pönitz]

On Sat, Dec 03, 2011 at 12:57:36PM +0100, Peter Kümmel wrote:
> On 03.12.2011 12:16, leandro.melo at nokia.com wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >> Is wip/clang in an usable state?
> >
> > I wouldn't consider it in an usable state yet. There are parts that
> > are working well, but many things are still quite incomplete (like
> > code navigation as you noticed). In addition, there are still a lot
> > of features that rely on the "old" parser, which should eventually
> > be adapted/rewritten.
> 
> Code navigation works now.
> 
> But your reply sounds like it is still not clear if clang has a future
> in qtcreator.

It is not clear.

It is clear that a clang based parser will be _much_ slower than the
existing one.  Even with a lot of caching etc. this will still be
intrusive for the user projects, like the need to use precompiled
headers.

And then it's hard to have things like connect() parsed as "use" of a
signal or a slot etc. 

So a clang based parser would have an impact on usability, and it's not
clear whether the "better" understanding of the code would outweigh
that, especially since even a 100% perfect C++ parser does not help in
#ifdef blocks.

There might even be room for a hybrid solution, i.e. use a combination
of both, but that starts with a memory penalty, and maintaining two
parsers might not feasible either.

Andre'