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Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

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Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#151

Post by chadcmulligan »

simianwords wrote: post #137
chadcmulligan wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s giving you an idea of what Claude is capable of - creating a project at the complexity of a small compiler. I don’t know if it can replace programmers but can definitely handle tasks of smaller complexity autonomously.

"autonomously" I couldn't agree with, I use it regularly for 100-200 loc size stuff, I can't recall it ever being right the first time.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#152

Post by bux93 »

bopbopbop7 wrote: post #55
kristiandupont wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel that I see this anywhere but if so, I guess I'm in a third camp. I am "pro" in the sense that I believe that LLM's are making traditional programming obsolete. In fact there isn't any doubt in my mind. However, I am "anti" in the sense that I am not excited or happy about it at all! And I certainly don't encourage anyone to throw money at accelerating that process.

> I believe that LLM's are making traditional programming obsolete. In fact there isn't any doubt in my mind. Is this what AI psychosis looks like? How can anyone that is a half decent programmer actually believe that English + non-deterministic code generator will replace "traditional" programming?

That's also my take, vibe coding as a non-deterministic 4GL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_...

4GLs are productive yes, but also limited, and still require someone to come up with specs that are both informed by (business) realities and engineering considerations.

But this is also an arena where bosses expect magic to happen when people are involved; just pronounce a new strategy, and your business magically transforms - without any of that pesky 'figuring out what to do' or 'aligning stakeholders' or 'wondering what drugs the c-suite is doing'. Let LLMs write the specs!

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#153

Post by Incipient »

Alupis wrote: post #39
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'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:/…

>Here's my question: why did the files that you submitted name Mark Shinwell as the author?

>Beats me. AI decided to do so and I didn't question it.

Haha that's comedy gold, and honestly a good interview screening situation - you'd instantly pass on the candidate!

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#154

Post by simianwords »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #151
simianwords wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s giving you an idea of what Claude is capable of - creating a project at the complexity of a small compiler. I don’t know if it can replace programmers but can definitely handle tasks of smaller complexity autonomously.

"autonomously" I couldn't agree with, I use it regularly for 100-200 loc size stuff, I can't recall it ever being right the first time.

Autonomously means giving it access to run tests and compiler

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#155

Post by jbjbjbjb »

tyre wrote: post #78

As a neutral observation: it’s remarkable how quickly we as humans adjust expectations. Imagine five years ago saying that you could have a general purpose AI write a c compiler that can handle the Linux kernel, by itself, from scratch for $20k by writing a simple English prompt. That would have been completely unbelievable! Absurd! No one would take it seriously. And now look at where we are.

> a simple English prompt

And that’s where my suspicion stems from.

An equivalent original human piece of work from an expert level programmer wouldn’t be able to do this without all the context. By that I mean all the all the shared insights, discussion and design that happened when making the compiler.

So to do this without any of that context is likely just very elaborate copy pasta.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#156

Post by mdavid626 »

simianwords wrote: post #134
mdavid626 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That’s not true. It didn’t have access to the internet and no LLM has the fidelity to reproduce code verbatim from its training data at the project level. In this case, it’s true that compilers were in its training data but only helped at the conceptual level and not spitting verbatim gcc code.

> In this case, it’s true that compilers were in its training data but only helped at the conceptual level and not spitting verbatim gcc code.

How do you know that?

At this point AI coding feels like religion. You have to believe in it.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#157

Post by abbyprog »

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'm firmly in the anti/unimpressed camp so far - but of course open to see where it goes.

I mean this compiler is the equivalent of handing someone a calculator when it was first invented and seeing that it took 2 hours to multiply two numbers together, I would go "cool that you have a machine that can do math, but I can multiply faster by hand, so it's a useless device to me".

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#158

Post by simianwords »

mdavid626 wrote: post #156
simianwords wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. It didn’t have access to the internet and no LLM has the fidelity to reproduce code verbatim from its training data at the project level. In this case, it’s true that compilers were in its training data but only helped at the conceptual level and not spitting verbatim gcc code.

> In this case, it’s true that compilers were in its training data but only helped at the conceptual level and not spitting verbatim gcc code. How do you know that? At this point AI coding feels like religion. You have to believe in it.

How do I know that? The code is not similar to GCC at any level except conceptual. If you can point out the similarity at any level I might agree with you.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#159

Post by mdavid626 »

simianwords wrote: post #158
mdavid626 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In this case, it’s true that compilers were in its training data but only helped at the conceptual level and not spitting verbatim gcc code. How do you know that? At this point AI coding feels like religion. You have to believe in it.

How do I know that? The code is not similar to GCC at any level except conceptual. If you can point out the similarity at any level I might agree with you.

I have a feeling, you didn't look at the code at all.

Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC

#160

Post by marcus_holmes »

red75prime wrote: post #62
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…

> 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-LLM: Read the freaking article, it's not that long. The compiler made a mistake in an area where only two compilers exist that are up to the task: Linux Kernel.

Anthropic said they vibe-coded a C compiler that could compile the Linux kernel. That's what they said. No-one forced them to say that. They could have picked another code base.

It turns out that isn't true in all instances, as this article demonstrates. I'm not nearly expert enough to be able to decide if that error was simple, stupid, irrelevant, or whatever. I can make a call on whether it successfully compiled the Linux kernel: it did not.

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