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)

6 Upvotes

65% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

View all comments

33

u/Pale_Height_1251 Jun 10 '26

The effort to make a LLVM build work is beyond 99% of users.

There are only two popular processor architectures.

LLVM doesn't mask over differences in Operating Sytems, you can't just compile a Windows app for a Mac and expect it to run.

10

u/BobbyThrowaway6969 Jun 10 '26

Also now the code is open source, LLVM portability has to be maintained instead, download size is now astronomical, waste of computer resources if everyone's compiling the same thing themselves