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Becoming a compiler engineer

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Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#111

Post by silcoon »

eredengrin wrote: post #71
silcoon wrote: post #26

Interesting article to get a bit more knowledge about the field. I went quickly trough some of the books cited and I have the same feeling that they’re not very practical. Also I didn’t find many practical books about LLVM either. I would like to read in the future about what is the usual day of a compiler engineer, what you usually do, what are the most enjoyable and annoying tasks.

I've heard good things about "LLVM Techniques, Tips, and Best Practices" [0] but haven't gotten around to reading it myself yet. Packt does not always have the best reputation but it was recommended to me by someone I know and the reviews are also solid, so mentioning in case it's at all helpful. 0: https://www.packtpub.com/en-us/product/llvm-techniques-tips-...

Thanks! I hoped that someone would come with some suggestions

Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#112

Post by sarchertech »

1718627440 wrote: post #102
sarchertech wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of slapping Harry Potter in the middle of your book wholesale, imagine you lifted a few really good lines from Harry Potter, a few from Lord of the Rings, and more from a handful of other books. Read the evidence document another poster linked for actual examples.

To me as a dumb reader, that would be fine, maybe the author could have mentioned that he likes these authors and takes them as inspirations. Also you can't really forbid books to never have references to pop culture. And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural sayings.

>could have mentioned

Well plagiarism by definition means passing the work off as your own without crediting the author, so in that case it isn’t plagiarism.

References to pop culture are the same as lifting sentences from other books and pretending you wrote them.

> And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural sayings

In the actual case being examined the copied references certainly hadn’t reached any such level of famousness.

Also there’s a difference between having a character tell another “not all those who wander are lost” as a clear reference to a famous quote from LOTR and copying multiple paragraph length deep cuts to pass off as your own work.

Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#113

Post by IlIlIllIl »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #110
ChadNauseam wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without being too mean-spirited about it, her success is mostly due to luck, reputation, and factors other than expertise such as checking off the right demographic boxes, or being charming in some way. How do you know this? Just because some people have written dissertations on compilers and didn't find work? OP seems very talented. And doing compiler work for a blockchain is not the most competitive position. I d…

>How do you know this? Just because some people have written dissertations on compilers and didn't find work? Yes, I said exactly that. It's because virtually nobody who studies compilers ever has a job doing that, and this is a girl literally from MIT we're talking about. It's not as much about expertise as about the hiring end of things IMO. I could be wrong but I'm just connecting dots and making educated guesses…

She's taking a very standard junior engineer route into a specialized technical field. It's perfectly normal to be hired at that level without having deep expertise of the topic. I don't see what you're getting so worked up about really.

Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#114

Post by fweimer »

zfnmxt wrote: post #56
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So few people trained or specialized in language implementation and compiler writing actually get the chance to write compilers. Those jobs are just so rare that many people in that area re-specialize into something else (like AI these days).

They aren't that rare. And AI is expanding the niche because making parallel linear algebra go zoom zoom is compiler work. There's also a lot of quantum compiler work.

All those LLVM forks need maintainers, too.

Then there are the people building compilers accidentally, like in the -as-code space. Infrastructure automation deal with grammars, symbol tables, (hopefully) module systems, IRs, and so forth. Only the output is very different.

And of course the toolchain space is larger than just compilers. Someone needs to maintain the assemblers, linkers, debuggers, core runtime libraries. If you are building a Linux distribution, someone has to figure out how the low-level pieces fit together. It's not strictly a compiler engineering role, but it's quite close. Pure compiler engineering roles (such as maintaining a specific register allocator) might be quite rare.

It's a small field, but probably not that obscure. Despite the efficiency gains from open-source compilers, I don't think it's shrinking.

Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#115

Post by ChadNauseam »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #110
ChadNauseam wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without being too mean-spirited about it, her success is mostly due to luck, reputation, and factors other than expertise such as checking off the right demographic boxes, or being charming in some way. How do you know this? Just because some people have written dissertations on compilers and didn't find work? OP seems very talented. And doing compiler work for a blockchain is not the most competitive position. I d…

>How do you know this? Just because some people have written dissertations on compilers and didn't find work? Yes, I said exactly that. It's because virtually nobody who studies compilers ever has a job doing that, and this is a girl literally from MIT we're talking about. It's not as much about expertise as about the hiring end of things IMO. I could be wrong but I'm just connecting dots and making educated guesses…

You say this:

> For what it's worth I would not expect you to be a competent compiler engineer either, especially without a degree or killer experience.

Which indicates to me that you think a degree would be evidence of me being a competent compiler engineer. But when OP gets a degree from MIT (and does part of a graduate program in compilers), and then gets hired, you suggest that she has substandard skills compared to what you would expect from someone in her role. I'm not sure why me not having a degree would count against me, but her having gotten a degree doesn't seem to count in her favor

Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#116

Post by fweimer »

What does the other side look like? How would you go about finding people interested in this space, and who are not yet part of the LLVM and GNU toolchain communities (at least not in a very visible way)?

Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#117

Post by 1718627440 »

sarchertech wrote: post #112
1718627440 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me as a dumb reader, that would be fine, maybe the author could have mentioned that he likes these authors and takes them as inspirations. Also you can't really forbid books to never have references to pop culture. And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural sayings.

>could have mentioned Well plagiarism by definition means passing the work off as your own without crediting the author, so in that case it isn’t plagiarism. References to pop culture are the same as lifting sentences from other books and pretending you wrote them. > And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural saying…

> Well plagiarism by definition means passing the work off as your own without crediting the author, so in that case it isn’t plagiarism.

Of course, but wrote 'could' and not 'should' for a reason, I won't expect it. A book isn't a paper and the general expectation is that the book will be interesting or fun to read and not that it is original. That means the general expectation is not that it is never a rehash of existing ideas. I think ever book including all the good ones is. A book that invents the world from scratch might be novel, but unlikely what people want to read.

> copying multiple paragraph length deep cuts to pass off as your own work.

If that is true, it sounds certainly fishy, but that is a case of violation of copyright and intellectual property and not of plagiarism.

Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#118

Post by sarchertech »

1718627440 wrote: post #117
sarchertech wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>could have mentioned Well plagiarism by definition means passing the work off as your own without crediting the author, so in that case it isn’t plagiarism. References to pop culture are the same as lifting sentences from other books and pretending you wrote them. > And at some level of famous-ness passages and ideas loose their exclusive tie to the original book and become part of the list of common cultural saying…

> Well plagiarism by definition means passing the work off as your own without crediting the author, so in that case it isn’t plagiarism. Of course, but wrote 'could' and not 'should' for a reason, I won't expect it. A book isn't a paper and the general expectation is that the book will be interesting or fun to read and not that it is original. That means the general expectation is not that it is never a rehash of ex…

> That means the general expectation is not that it is never a rehash of existing ideas.

There’s a different from rehashing existing ideas and copying multiple passages off as your own.

> If that is true, it sounds certainly fishy, but that is a case of violation of copyright and intellectual property and not of plagiarism.

What exactly do you think plagiarism is? Here’s one common definition:

“An instance of plagiarizing, especially a passage that is taken from the work of one person and reproduced in the work of another without attribution.”

Re: Becoming a compiler engineer

#120

Post by jibal »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #110
ChadNauseam wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without being too mean-spirited about it, her success is mostly due to luck, reputation, and factors other than expertise such as checking off the right demographic boxes, or being charming in some way. How do you know this? Just because some people have written dissertations on compilers and didn't find work? OP seems very talented. And doing compiler work for a blockchain is not the most competitive position. I d…

>How do you know this? Just because some people have written dissertations on compilers and didn't find work? Yes, I said exactly that. It's because virtually nobody who studies compilers ever has a job doing that, and this is a girl literally from MIT we're talking about. It's not as much about expertise as about the hiring end of things IMO. I could be wrong but I'm just connecting dots and making educated guesses…

a gurl

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