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We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

anthropic.com

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Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#291

Post by falcor84 »

cv5005 wrote: post #102
falcor84 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> literally a text book task Generating a 99% compliant C compiler is not a textbook task in any university I've ever heard of. There's a vast difference between a toy compiler and one that can actually compile Linux and Doom. From a bit of research now, there are only three other compilers that can compile an unmodified Linux kernel: GCC, Clang/LLVM and Intel's oneAPI. I can't find any other compiler implementation…

That's because you need to implement a bunch of gcc-specific behavior that linux relies on. A 100% standards compliant c23 compiler can't compile linux.

Ok, yes, that's true, though my understanding is that it's not the GCC is not compliant, but rather that it includes extensions beyond the standard, which is allowed by the standard, which says (in section 4. Conformance):

> A conforming implementation may have extensions (including additional library functions), provided they do not alter the behavior of any strictly conforming program

Anyway, this just makes Claude's achievement here more impressive, right?

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#292

Post by bsoles »

The title should have said "Antropic stole GCC and other open-source compiler code to create a subpar, non-functional compiler", without attribution or compensation. Open source was never meant for thieving megacorps like them.

No, I did not read the article...

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#294

Post by luke5441 »

jbjbjbjb wrote: post #286
ndesaulniers wrote: post #165

I spent a good part of my career (nearly a decade) at Google working on getting Clang to build the linux kernel. https://clangbuiltlinux.github.io/ This LLM did it in (checks notes): > Over nearly 2,000 Claude Code sessions and $20,000 in API costs It may build, but does it boot (was also a significant and distinct next milestone)? (Also, will it blend?). Looks like yes! > The 100,000-line compiler can build a bootab…

It’s cool but there’s a good chance it’s just copying someone else’s homework albeit in an elaborate round about way.

It looks like a much more progressed/complete version of https://github.com/kidoz/smdc-toolchain/tree/master/crates/s... . But that one is only a month old. So a bit confused there. Maybe that was also created via LLM?

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#295

Post by the8472 »

regularfry wrote: post #240
whinvik wrote: post #12

It's weird to see the expectation that the result should be perfect. All said and done, that its even possible is remarkable. Maybe these all go into training the next Opus or Sonnet and we start getting models that can create efficient compilers from scratch. That would be something!

This is firmly where I am. "The wonder is not how well the dog dances, it is that it dances at all."

"It's like if a squirrel started playing chess and instead of "holy shit this squirrel can play chess!" most people responded with "But his elo rating sucks""

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#296

Post by [deleted] »

fragmede wrote: post #273
bopbopbop7 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people care more about compiler speed than the correctness? I would love to meet these imaginary people that are fine with a compiler that is straight up broken. Emitting working code is the baseline, not some preference slider.

Let's pretend, for just a second, that the people who do, having been able to learn how to program, are not absolute fucking morons. Straight up broken is obviously not useful, so maybe the conclusions you've jumped to could use some reexamination.

[deleted]

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#297

Post by yoz-y »

underdeserver wrote: post #201
phillmv wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i mean… your work also went into the training set, so it's not entirely surprising that it spat a version back out!

Anthropic's version is in Rust though, so at least a little different.

One thing LLMs are really good at is translation. I haven’t tried porting projects from one language to another, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were particularly good at that too.

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#298

Post by nomel »

jbjbjbjb wrote: post #286
ndesaulniers wrote: post #165

I spent a good part of my career (nearly a decade) at Google working on getting Clang to build the linux kernel. https://clangbuiltlinux.github.io/ This LLM did it in (checks notes): > Over nearly 2,000 Claude Code sessions and $20,000 in API costs It may build, but does it boot (was also a significant and distinct next milestone)? (Also, will it blend?). Looks like yes! > The 100,000-line compiler can build a bootab…

It’s cool but there’s a good chance it’s just copying someone else’s homework albeit in an elaborate round about way.

I would claim that LLMs desperately need proprietary code in their training, before we see any big gains in quality.

There's some incredible source available code out there. Statistically, I think there's a LOT more not so great source available code out there, because the majority of output of seasoned/high skill developers is proprietary.

To me, a surprising portion of Claude 4.5 output definitely looks like student homework answers, because I think that's closer to the mean of the code population.

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#299

Post by uywykjdskn »

RyanCavanaugh wrote: post #103
halxc wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all saw verbatim copies in the early LLMs. They "fixed" it by implementing filters that trigger rewrites on blatant copyright infringement. It is a research topic for heaven's sake: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.16046

The internet is hundreds of billions of terabytes; a frontier model is maybe half a terabyte. While they are certainly capable of doing some verbatim recitations, this isn't just a matter of teasing out the compressed C compiler written in Rust that's already on the internet (where?) and stored inside the model.

You got a source on frontier models being maybe half a terabyte. That's not passing the sniff test.

Re: We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

#300

Post by uywykjdskn »

modeless wrote: post #31
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #19

This is a much more reasonable take than the cursor-browser thing. A few things that make it pretty impressive: > This was a clean-room implementation (Claude did not have internet access at any point during its development); it depends only on the Rust standard library. The 100,000-line compiler can build Linux 6.9 on x86, ARM, and RISC-V. It can also compile QEMU, FFmpeg, SQlite, postgres, redis > I started by draf…

There seem to still be a lot of people who look at results like this and evaluate them purely based on the current state. I don't know how you can look at this and not realize that it represents a huge improvement over just a few months ago, there have been continuous improvements for many years now, and there is no reason to believe progress is stopping here. If you project out just one year, even assuming progress…

Yea the software engineering profession is over, even if all improvements stop now.
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