What a great resource. I will certainly pick up the book when it’s out.
Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
11–20 of 48 posts
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#12When I find a bug in this compiler, I go back to the original commit that introduced the bug and rewrite the commit history as if there were no such bug from the beginning. This is an unusual way of fixing bugs, but as a a part of a book, it is important to keep every commit bug-free.
Somehow I can't imagine Brian Kernighan or Dennis Ritchie making those sorts of commits.
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#13Where will we be able to buy a copy? Is there a mailing list? I will certainly forget about this book in n months time.
Author here. No publishing date has been set yet. At least a half-written Japanese version of the book is available online for free (https://www.sigbus.info/compilerbook), and I'll probably translate this to English and share at least a few chapters for free. But nothing is set in stone yet. There's no mailing list for notifications yet.
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#14It would be helpful if the title was edited to feature the compiler's name: chibicc. It would make it easier to search and SEO-wise it would be helpful to disseminate the project.
Send an email to the mods hn@ycombinator.com They sometimes makes these changes.
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#15For a different optimizing C compiler that is also small, and usable as a JIT see MIR project by Vladimir Makarov - https://github.com/vnmakarov/mir/tree/master/c2mir
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#16maybe the author can verify, from what I could see it generates assembler files that one should save to a .S file and then can be run with gcc's `cc -o executable file.S`.
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#17The cat is excellent
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#18When I find a bug in this compiler, I go back to the original commit that introduced the bug and rewrite the commit history as if there were no such bug from the beginning. This is an unusual way of fixing bugs, but as a a part of a book, it is important to keep every commit bug-free. Somehow I can't imagine Brian Kernighan or Dennis Ritchie making those sorts of commits.
I would imagine it is done to avoid having a chapter at the end showing all the patches and why they were needed. A compiler course shouldn't have a bunch of errors if they can be avoided.
I doubt Brian Kernighan or Dennis Ritchie put all the errata at the end of their books on subsequent printings. They fixed the main text.
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#19https://bellard.org/tcc/
Probably best know and with loooong beard...
Re: Chibicc: A Small C Compiler
#20I love 'the incremental approach to compiler construction'. Here are a few other courses that use this approach to teach compiler construction:
* http://www.ccs.neu.edu/course/cs4410/
* https://ucsd-cse131-f19.github.io/
* https://jeapostrophe.github.io/courses/2017/spring/406/notes...