[Athas]

> However, if you want to add new concepts into the IR, you should do it in the language that the IR is defined in.

And isn't that what most users will want to do? The point of MLIR is to provide a framework for writing mid-level IRs, citing among others the Rust compiler as an example. This will invariably involve adding both new concepts and new passes (for example, the Rust IR will presumably wish to represent and check ownership information explicitly), but the Rust compiler is written in Rust, not C++.

Don't get me wrong, I can't really think of a better language for implementing MLIR than C++. Everything that I would find subjectively better would be too obscure to gain industrial traction, and using straight C would probably be too painful. I just suspect that it will limit its use as a universal mid-level IR.

[bluejekyll]

> I can't really think of a better language for implementing MLIR than C++.

C++ being the language of llvm, it makes sense. But surely any language would be good, and memory safe ones with stronger type systems as well would potentially lead to higher quality output, no?