I don't know what point you're trying to make but your question was what's an alternative to llvm. People writing compilers always used C89 or a version of it (C11 allows an easier atomic implementation). There's a lot more C89 compilers than backends that llvm supports. When I was writing arduino code clang/llvm couldn't generate the AVR code for the board. The default toolchain was gcc with an AVR backend. IIRC it had optimizations and was the only reasonable compiler I could use. There's nothing wrong using C as your backend
IIRC, the Inmos Transputer shipped without a C compiler, and while third party products (including a port of GCC) did come later, it was Occam-only for quite some time.
I never heard of hardware without one
Avoiding interacting with LLVM as a user doesn't mean you've created something equivalent to LLVM.
And if the C compiler you use is clang then you're still literally making use of LLVM.
I don't know what point you're trying to make but your question was what's an alternative to llvm. People writing compilers always used C89 or a version of it (C11 allows an easier atomic implementation). There's a lot more C89 compilers than backends that llvm supports. When I was writing arduino code clang/llvm couldn't generate the AVR code for the board. The default toolchain was gcc with an AVR backend. IIRC it had optimizations and was the only reasonable compiler I could use. There's nothing wrong using C as your backend
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So what you're saying is that C source code is the (only) stable LLVM ABI ;)
IIRC, the Inmos Transputer shipped without a C compiler, and while third party products (including a port of GCC) did come later, it was Occam-only for quite some time.