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Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

justine.lol

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Re: Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

#21

Post by hprx »

malux85 wrote: post #15
hprx wrote: post #10

I just spent 30 minutes reading about this. I'm so shocked that I'm logging in to comment after 5 years of lurking. Justine has built a c library that allows you compile a binary once and have it run it on any os or baremetal. The SAME binary. Quite frankly, that sentence doesn't even make sense to me. Check out https://storage.googleapis.com/justine/cosmopolitan/index.ht... As far as I'm concerned, this is literal m…

I agree, I got to the page on actually portable executable, and had to read it a few times to make sure I was grokking it properly. This is just sheer cleverness, THIS is the stuff that should be on hacker news!

For real.

It's hard to grok cause there are no words to describe it.

When people say that something is cross-platform, they usually mean a) that the software will build on multiple platforms b) there is some sort of vm which runs the executable (jvm, beam, wasm)

This is the SAME binary. Running everywhere. Could be super-useful as an archival format for mission critical code. sqlite comes to mind.

Maybe it's late at night, but I'm struggling to find a suitable word for the project that is better than portable or cross-platform.

Literally, I can't find a better word than the project name - "actually portable executable."

@author - if you're reading this please set up something for a few bucks a month on your github sponsors. I don't think I have any use for the library, but this is so outrageous it deserves something more than imaginary internet points.

Re: Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

#22

Post by akavel »

jart wrote: post #13
mikewarot wrote: post #6

I really like your view of the world, that programs should be portable, tiny, and just work. The slamming of so much functionality into a zip file is inspiring. Would it be possible to do something similar with Free Pascal, allowing the recreation of something like Turbo Pascal, except really, really portable .com output?

Author here. Absolutely. I used to love Turbo Pascal and Delphi when I was younger. If Free Pascal uses GNU LD.BFD or LLVM LLD when it links programs, then all you'd need to do is is configure it to use cosmopolitan.a when linking system call functions like read(), write(), etc. See https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan Another option is if Free Pascal wants to write all the system call support from scratch, then doin…

I think the Zig community/BDFL might appreciate adding an APE target "os" to their buildchain (LLVM-based); that could be a match made in heaven!

Re: Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

#23

Post by hprx »

ghoomketu wrote: post #17
hprx wrote: post #10

I just spent 30 minutes reading about this. I'm so shocked that I'm logging in to comment after 5 years of lurking. Justine has built a c library that allows you compile a binary once and have it run it on any os or baremetal. The SAME binary. Quite frankly, that sentence doesn't even make sense to me. Check out https://storage.googleapis.com/justine/cosmopolitan/index.ht... As far as I'm concerned, this is literal m…

I really don't understand internals ibut I've often downloaded cygwin exe file for commands like grep, tail, etc.. Are you telling me that is no longer required?

On linux, I downloaded the printvideo binary and played a friggin crab video on my terminal after just a chmod. I don't have any other OS to confirm, but it sure looks like it if someone compiles/links coreutils against this.

Re: Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

#24

Post by brainless »

OK I see we are going crazy, me too. Thanks @jart.

I have been thinking about portable web apps with embedded SQLite for some time. I do not have the technical chops at C level to pull this off. I am really inspired by this project. I hope Redbean leads a way to distribute self-hosted apps in today's era of the cloud.

Re: Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

#25

Post by skrebbel »

hprx wrote: post #10

I just spent 30 minutes reading about this. I'm so shocked that I'm logging in to comment after 5 years of lurking. Justine has built a c library that allows you compile a binary once and have it run it on any os or baremetal. The SAME binary. Quite frankly, that sentence doesn't even make sense to me. Check out https://storage.googleapis.com/justine/cosmopolitan/index.ht... As far as I'm concerned, this is literal m…

Everything she does has this level of jaw-dropping amazingness. Between her and Fabrice Bellard i don't know many people who consistently get my chin to hit the table.

I hope that Cosmopolitan becomes mainstream, so much more software could have that It Just Works quality.

Re: Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

#27

Post by ronyeh »

jart wrote: post #13
mikewarot wrote: post #6

I really like your view of the world, that programs should be portable, tiny, and just work. The slamming of so much functionality into a zip file is inspiring. Would it be possible to do something similar with Free Pascal, allowing the recreation of something like Turbo Pascal, except really, really portable .com output?

Author here. Absolutely. I used to love Turbo Pascal and Delphi when I was younger. If Free Pascal uses GNU LD.BFD or LLVM LLD when it links programs, then all you'd need to do is is configure it to use cosmopolitan.a when linking system call functions like read(), write(), etc. See https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan Another option is if Free Pascal wants to write all the system call support from scratch, then doin…

Since I can't upvote your Show HN twice, I'll upvote this comment. I learned something interesting tonight from your websites. Thanks!

chibicc is a really fun idea! If I was in college, I would take a compiler course from you.

Taken from your README:

"chibicc is developed as the reference implementation for a book I'm currently writing about the C compiler and the low-level programming. The book covers the vast topic with an incremental approach; in the first chapter, readers will implement a "compiler" that accepts just a single number as a "language", which will then gain one feature at a time in each section of the book until the language that the compiler accepts matches what the C11 spec specifies. I took this incremental approach from the paper by Abdulaziz Ghuloum."

Re: Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

#28

Post by alisonatwork »

hprx wrote: post #10

I just spent 30 minutes reading about this. I'm so shocked that I'm logging in to comment after 5 years of lurking. Justine has built a c library that allows you compile a binary once and have it run it on any os or baremetal. The SAME binary. Quite frankly, that sentence doesn't even make sense to me. Check out https://storage.googleapis.com/justine/cosmopolitan/index.ht... As far as I'm concerned, this is literal m…

Agreed, this is the best programming-related thing I've seen on the internet in a long time. It reminds me of when I was a teenager, excited to become a computer programmer. Then I grew up and joined the real world workforce and it was all far less exciting than I imagined.

The coolest thing about this Actually Portable Executable is that once there's a compiler and linker built with it, I can play around with writing C on Windows without having to faff about with WSL or MinGW or learning what makes MSVC different from the C I learned in university and coded in my first job before I became a Java/JavaScript/Python/etc programmer. When I discovered Go I thought I had discovered the better C that just worked everywhere, but the idea of having plain old C that also just works everywhere is very appealing.

Re: Show HN: Redbean – Single-file distributable web server

#29

Post by akalsz »

malux85 wrote: post #15
hprx wrote: post #10

I just spent 30 minutes reading about this. I'm so shocked that I'm logging in to comment after 5 years of lurking. Justine has built a c library that allows you compile a binary once and have it run it on any os or baremetal. The SAME binary. Quite frankly, that sentence doesn't even make sense to me. Check out https://storage.googleapis.com/justine/cosmopolitan/index.ht... As far as I'm concerned, this is literal m…

I agree, I got to the page on actually portable executable, and had to read it a few times to make sure I was grokking it properly. This is just sheer cleverness, THIS is the stuff that should be on hacker news!

> THIS is the stuff that should be on hacker news!

If interested, see previous discussions of APE:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24256883

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25556286

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