Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-c-compiler
Chalmers: "May I see it?" Anthropic: "No."
[deleted]
Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
331–340 of 377 posts
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#332The 158,000x slowdown on SQLite is the number that matters here, not whether it can parse C correctly. Parsing is the solved problem — every CS undergrad writes a recursive descent parser. The interesting (and hard) parts of a compiler are register allocation, instruction selection, and optimization passes, and those are exactly where this falls apart. That said, I think the framing of "CCC vs GCC" is wrong. GCC has…
CS undergrads write parsers for some toy lisps or other straight forward syntax. C isn't as trivial https://faultlore.com/blah/c-isnt-a-language/#you-cant-actua...
(a small remark, but to be clear I'm not terribly impressed by AI showcase of the c compiler, nor with browser before that, as it stands)
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
So far it has been accurate though. Models have gotten much better than even the most optimistic predictions.
... Eh? A few years back, the usual suspects were predicting AGI by, usually, either 2026 or 2027. Think that's gonna happen? (Such predictions have been quietly forgotten or revised forward, in general.)
No, I don't but it sounds very similar to the the naysayers that have silently moved the goalposts. That said, you're one of the few people in the wild that still claims LLMs are completely useless so I give you that.
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes you think you’ll be able to out-compete the purely-AI-led businesses with your business? What skills will give you an edge in the business that won’t also give you an edge in the job?
> What makes you think you’ll be able to out-compete the purely-AI-led businesses with your business? What skills will give you an edge in the business that won’t also give you an edge in the job? Or why do you think your small AI-driven business can survive against richer people who can pay for more compute and thus do better than you? AI may just turn software into a pay to win game.
Or why do you think your small AI-driven business can survive against richer people who can pay for more compute and thus do better than you?
Anyways, I'm heavily invested in compute companies right now.
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#335I 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 encompasses all the back-and-forth arguments I can think of. I would assume that proponents will eventually also mention AGI or ASI. :)
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm arguing your writing is unclear and confusing. You can't continue a sentence and pretend the new sentence isn't related to the previous one. Alpha Evolve is made from LLMs, but it's not the only part. If anything, it needs a genetic algo component. LLMs generally don't evolve. Also, why are you focusing on AlphaEvolve? I made two other points you haven't addressed.
You have no idea what alphaevolve is, yet you try to correct me. This isn't productive, I'm out.
First off, let's say I'm wrong about Alpha Evolve. Fine, I made two more points; address them as well; that's just normal manners in a conversation.
Second, I question your idea of what Alpha Evolve is. You seem to think it's an LLM or LLM-adjacent when it's more like an evolutionary algo picking a better seed among the LLMs. That's not an LLM, if anything, it has some ability to correct itself.
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
... Eh? A few years back, the usual suspects were predicting AGI by, usually, either 2026 or 2027. Think that's gonna happen? (Such predictions have been quietly forgotten or revised forward, in general.)
No, I don't but it sounds very similar to the the naysayers that have silently moved the goalposts. That said, you're one of the few people in the wild that still claims LLMs are completely useless so I give you that.
You said:
> Models have gotten much better than even the most optimistic predictions.
We were promised Roko's Basilisk by now, damnit! Where's my magical robot god?!
But seriously, predictions a couple years back for 2026/27 (by quite big players, like Altman) were for AGI or as good as.
I do not, for the record, claim that they are totally useless. They are useful where correctness of results does not matter, for instance low-stakes natural language translation and spam generation. There's _some_ argument that they are somewhat useful in cases where their output can be reviewed by an expert (code generation etc), though honestly quantitive evidence there is mixed at best; for all the "10x developer" claims, there's not much in the way of what you'd call hard evidence.
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're asking me to do the thing I just said was frustrating haha. I have no idea. It's a new technology and we have nothing to draw from to make predictions. But for the sake of fun.. New code generation / modification I think we're hitting a point of diminishing returns and they're not going to improve much here The limitation is fundamentally that they can only be as good as the detail in the specs given, or the t…
> If you make the specs detailed enough so that there's no misunderstanding possible: you've just written code, what we already do today This was my opinion for a very long time. Having build a few applications from scratch using AI, though, nowadays I think: Sometimes not everything needs to be spelled out. Like in math papers some details can be left to the ~~reader~~LLM and it'll be fine. I mean, in many cases it…
Sometimes, yeah. I don't think we're disagreeing
What I'd also add:
Because of the unspecified behaviour, you're always going to need someone technical that understands the output to verify it. Tests aren't enough
I'm not even sure if this is a net productivity benefit. I think it is? Some cases it's a clear win.. but definitely not always. You're reducing time coding and now putting extra into spec writing + review + verification
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, I see what you mean - you're making a distinction between someone's speech and someone's acts. Fair enough. In that sense, you would argue that the action of dropping a 13k loc PR is impolite, and I can see that. It's just that in my reading, I did not find his demeanor in the comment thread to be impolite. He was trying to sell his contribution and I think that whatever he wrote was using respectful language.
Dropping an unreviewable 13000 lines PR is disrespectful to the reviewers and their time. Doing it without any prior discussion with the maintainers is disrespectful to the maintainers and the architecture work they put in. Trying to "sell" your contribution is disrespectful and implies you know better than the maintainers. Cockily saying "the AI knows better than you" is disrespectful. Respectful and polite language…
[deleted]
Re: Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
interpreting his words on a literal basis , the PR submitter isn't being directly impolite ... if you will , place yourself in the shoes of the repository maintainer. a random person (with a personal agenda) has popped up trying to sell you a solution (that he doesn't understand) to a problem (that you don't see as problematic). after you spending literal hours patiently explaining why the proposition is not acceptab…
I think there's nothing wrong with trying to sell your solution, and I'm skeptical about the "literal hours" that you claim. The way I interpret this thread is that the PR poster had a certain itch and came up with a vibe-coded solution that helped him. Now he's trying to make that available for others too. The maintainers don't want it because it's too large a PR to review properly and because they don't want to hav…
> his writing did not appear impolite to me
I learnt something from this thread.
That, respectfulness and politeness are more from intentions/actions than from speech alone. Politeness of language without any respect for the actual function of that speech is pointless. Indeed, that this what the LLMs are trained for. Form over function. And many humans get fooled by it and are also clueless like the person dropping the steaming turd of a PR.