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Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

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Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#111

Post by chadcmulligan »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #81
mdavid626 wrote: post #71

Can someone explain to me, what’s the big deal about this? The AI model was trained on lots of code and spit out sonething similar than gcc. Why is this revolutionary?

If someone told you 5 years ago that a computer generated a working C compiler, would you think it was a big deal or not?

yeah its pretty amazing it can do this. The problem is the gaslighting by the companies making this - "see we can create compilers, we won't need programmers", programmers - "this is crap, are you insane?", classic gas lighting.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#112

Post by codebolt »

onion2k wrote: post #95
Alupis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded, once again, of the recent "vibe coded" OCaml fiasco[1]. The PR author had zero understanding why their entirely LLM-generated contribution was viewed so suspiciously. The article validates a significant point: it is one thing to have passing tests and be able to produce output that resembles correctness - however it's something entirely different for that output to be good and maintainable . [1] https:/…

however it's something entirely different for that output to be good and maintainable People aren't prompting LLMs to write good, maintainable code though. They're assuming that because we've made a collective assumption that good, maintainable code is the goal then it must also be the goal of an LLM too. That isn't true. LLMs don't care about our goals. They are solving problems in a probabilistic way based on the c…

> People aren't prompting LLMs to write good, maintainable code though.

Then they're not using the tools correctly. LLMs are capable of producing good clean code, but they need to be carefully instructed as to how.

I recently used Gemini to build my first Android app, and I have zero experience with Kotlin or most of the libraries (but I have done many years of enterprise Java in my career). When I started I first had a long discussion with the AI about how we should set up dependency injection, Material3 UI components, model-view architecture, Firebase, logging, etc and made a big Markdown file with a detailed architecture description. Then I let the agent mode implement the plan over several steps and with a lot of tweaking along the way. I've been quite happy with the result, the app works like a charm and the code is neatly structured and easy to jump into whenever I need to make changes. Finishing a project like this in a couple of dozen hours (especially being a complete newbie to the stack) simply would not have been possible 2-3 years ago.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#113

Post by frizlab »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #8

I think this is a great example of both points of view in the ongoing debate. Pro-LLM coding agents: look! a working compiler built in a few hours by an agent! this is amazing! Anti-LLM coding agents: it's not a working compiler, though. And it doesn't matter how few hours it took, because it doesn't work. It's useless. Pro: Sure, but we can get the agent to fix that. Anti: Can you, though? We've seen that the more c…

I think you also forgot: Anti: But the whole thing can only have been generated because GCC and other compilers already exists (and depending on how strong the anti-feeling is: and has been stolen…)!

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#114

Post by onion2k »

codebolt wrote: post #112
onion2k wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

however it's something entirely different for that output to be good and maintainable People aren't prompting LLMs to write good, maintainable code though. They're assuming that because we've made a collective assumption that good, maintainable code is the goal then it must also be the goal of an LLM too. That isn't true. LLMs don't care about our goals. They are solving problems in a probabilistic way based on the c…

> People aren't prompting LLMs to write good, maintainable code though. Then they're not using the tools correctly. LLMs are capable of producing good clean code, but they need to be carefully instructed as to how. I recently used Gemini to build my first Android app, and I have zero experience with Kotlin or most of the libraries (but I have done many years of enterprise Java in my career). When I started I first ha…

When I started I first had a long discussion with the AI... and made a big Markdown file with a detailed architecture description.

Yep, that's how you get better output from AI. A lot of devs haven't learned that yet. They still see it as 'better autocomplete'.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#115

Post by Ygg2 »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #69
Ygg2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off Alpha Evolve isn't an LLM. No more than a human is a kidney. Second depends. If you told them to pretrain for writing C compiler however long it takes, I could see a smaller team doing it in a week or two. Keep in mind LLMs pretrain on all OSS including GCC. > Meanwhile, at every step of the way these things become better and better. Will they? Or do they just ingest more data and compute?[1] Again, time wi…

> First off Alpha Evolve isn't an LLM. It's a system based on LLMs. > AlphaEvolve, an evolutionary coding agent powered by large language models for general-purpose algorithm discovery and optimization. AlphaEvolve pairs the creative problem-solving capabilities of our Gemini models with automated evaluators that verify answers, and uses an evolutionary framework to improve upon the most promising ideas. > AlphaEvolv…

> It's a system based on LLMs.

What you said is:

    > First, remember when we had LLMs run optimisation passes last year? Alphaevolve doing square packing
If I start a sentence:

    First, remember the fish intelligence competition last year? Rossie jumped through a hula hoop.
I, and other readers (probably), would think Rossie is a fish. Not a dog. Even if you can technically group dogs as a sort of fish descendant.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#116

Post by benreesman »

bgirard wrote: post #30
marcus_holmes wrote: post #8

I think this is a great example of both points of view in the ongoing debate. Pro-LLM coding agents: look! a working compiler built in a few hours by an agent! this is amazing! Anti-LLM coding agents: it's not a working compiler, though. And it doesn't matter how few hours it took, because it doesn't work. It's useless. Pro: Sure, but we can get the agent to fix that. Anti: Can you, though? We've seen that the more c…

This to me sounds a lot like the SpaceX conversation: - Ohh look it can [write small function / do a small rocket hop] but it can't [ write a compiler / get to orbit]! - Ohh look it can [write a toy compiler / get to orbit] but it can't [compile linux / be reusable] - Ohh look it can [compile linux / get reusable orbital rocket] but it can't [build a compiler that rivals GCC / turn the rockets around fast enough] - T…

AI assist in software engineering is unambiguously demonstrated to some done degree at this point: the "no LLM output in my project" stance is cope.

But "reliable, durable, scalable outcomes in adversarial real-world scenarios" is not convincingly demonstrated in public, the asterisks are load bearing as GPT 5.2 Pro would say.

That game is still on, and AI assist beyond FIM is still premature for safety critical or generally outcome critical applications: i.e. you can do it if it doesn't have to work.

I've got a horse in this race which is formal methods as the methodology and AI assist as the thing that makes it economically viable. My stuff is north of demonstrated in the small and south of proven in the large, it's still a bet.

But I like the stock. The no free lunch thing here is that AI can turn specifications into code if the specification is already so precise that it is code.

The irreducible heavy lift is that someone has to prompt it, and if the input is vibes the output will be vibes. If the input is zero sorry rigor... you've just moved the cost around.

The modern software industry is an expensive exercise in "how do we capture all the value and redirect it from expert computer scientists to some arbitrary financier".

You can't. Not at less than the cost of the experts if the outcomes are non-negotiable.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#118

Post by sirwitti »

codebolt wrote: post #112
onion2k wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

however it's something entirely different for that output to be good and maintainable People aren't prompting LLMs to write good, maintainable code though. They're assuming that because we've made a collective assumption that good, maintainable code is the goal then it must also be the goal of an LLM too. That isn't true. LLMs don't care about our goals. They are solving problems in a probabilistic way based on the c…

> People aren't prompting LLMs to write good, maintainable code though. Then they're not using the tools correctly. LLMs are capable of producing good clean code, but they need to be carefully instructed as to how. I recently used Gemini to build my first Android app, and I have zero experience with Kotlin or most of the libraries (but I have done many years of enterprise Java in my career). When I started I first ha…

Not trying to be rude, but in a technology you're not familiar with you might not be able to know what good code is, and even less so if it's maintainable.

Finding and fixing that subtle, hard to reproduce bug that could kill your business after 3 years.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#119

Post by mdavid626 »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #81
mdavid626 wrote: post #71

Can someone explain to me, what’s the big deal about this? The AI model was trained on lots of code and spit out sonething similar than gcc. Why is this revolutionary?

If someone told you 5 years ago that a computer generated a working C compiler, would you think it was a big deal or not?

Sounds amazing, but the computer didn’t do it out of blue with intelligence, but more like cookie-cutter style from already existing code.

What’s the big deal about that?

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#120

Post by itsyonas »

bgirard wrote: post #30
marcus_holmes wrote: post #8

I think this is a great example of both points of view in the ongoing debate. Pro-LLM coding agents: look! a working compiler built in a few hours by an agent! this is amazing! Anti-LLM coding agents: it's not a working compiler, though. And it doesn't matter how few hours it took, because it doesn't work. It's useless. Pro: Sure, but we can get the agent to fix that. Anti: Can you, though? We've seen that the more c…

This to me sounds a lot like the SpaceX conversation: - Ohh look it can [write small function / do a small rocket hop] but it can't [ write a compiler / get to orbit]! - Ohh look it can [write a toy compiler / get to orbit] but it can't [compile linux / be reusable] - Ohh look it can [compile linux / get reusable orbital rocket] but it can't [build a compiler that rivals GCC / turn the rockets around fast enough] - T…

All right, but perhaps they should also list the grand promises they made and failed to deliver on. They said they would have fully self-driving cars by 2016. They said they would land on Mars in 2018, yet almost a decade has passed since then. They said they would have Tesla's fully self-driving robo-taxis by 2020 and human-to-human telepathy via Neuralink brain implants by 2025–2027.

> -

Sure, but not by what was actually promised. There may also be fundamental limitations to what the current architecture of LLMs can achieve. The vast majority of LLMs are still based on Transformers, which were introduced almost a decade ago. If you look at the history of AI, it wouldn't be the first time that a roadblock stalled progress for decades.

> But I bet it would catch up real fast to GCC with a fraction of the resources if it was guided by a few compiler engineers in the loop.

Okay, so at that point, we would have proved that AI can replicate an existing software project using hundreds of thousands of dollars of computing power and probably millions of dollars in human labour costs from highly skilled domain experts.

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