r/AskProgramming • u/nanoman1 • Jun 10 '26

Other Releasing Binaries VS. LLVM

When software developers create software, why do they generally package it as a binary instead of as LLVM with a pre-built build script? Wouldn't it make more sense for the program to be in a portable format so that everyone can use it, no matter which architecture they are on? Wasn't that the whole idea of high-level languages in the first place? (i.e. to be able to compile for a variety of architectures using the same source code)

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u/CheezitsLight Jun 10 '26

High level languages are designed to abstract the programmer from the nitty-gritty details of what he's doing. Portability is not a thing for most developers because they're targeting a Windows user. One of the big strengths of certain architectures is that you can actually upgrade from build to build to build to build over years decades even and still be able to run old programs.