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Yep. Building a working C compiler that compiles Linux is an impossible task for all but the top 1% of developers. And the ones that could do it have better thi

Yep. Building a working C compiler that compiles Linux is an impossible task for all but the top 1% of developers. And the ones that could do it have better things to do, plus they’d want a lot more than 20K for the trouble.

vbezhenar 9mo ago
What's so hard about it? Compiler construction is well researched topic and taught in the universities. I made toy language compiler as a student. May be I'm underestimating this task, but I think that I can build some simple C compiler which will output trivial assembly. Given my salary of $2500, that would probably take me around a year, so that's pretty close LoL.
- cma 9mo ago
  You can one shot prompt a toy C compiler. Getting one that can compile Linux in a bootable way is significantly harder.
  - f1shy 9mo ago
    Everybody talks as Linux is the most difficult thing to compile in the world. The reality is that linux is well written and designed with portability with crappy compilers in mind from the beginning. Also, the booting part, as stated some times, is discutable.
    - icedchai 9mo ago
      The reality is you can build Linux with gcc and clang. And that’s it. Years ago you could use Intel’s icc compiler, but that stopped being supported. Let’s stop pretending it’s an undergrad project.
    - cma 9mo ago
      Just writing a non-toy C preprocessor is non-trivial.
fsflover 9mo ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46909529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46909529
- icedchai 9mo ago
  I’ll be shocked if they are able to do it in 4 months, never mind 4 weeks.
  - f1shy 9mo ago
    Have you ever seen Tsoding youtube channel? I’m sure Mr Zosin can very much do it in one week. And considering russian salaries, it will be like an order of magnitude cheaper.
rhubarbtree 9mo ago
Interesting, why impossible? We studied compiler construction at uni. I might have to dig out a few books, but I’m confident I could write one. I can’t imagine anyone on my course of 120 nerds being unable to do this.
- menaerus 9mo ago
  You are underestimating the complexity of the task so do other people on the thread. It's not trivial to implement a working C compiler very much so to implement the one that proves its worth by successfully compiling one of the largest open-source code repositories ever, which btw is not even a plain ISO C dialect.
  - rhubarbtree 9mo ago
    I didn’t say it was trivial. Just that I thought my course mates would be able to do it.
    - qarl 9mo ago
      You thought your course mates would be able to write a C compiler that builds the Linux? Huh. Interesting. Like the other guy pointed out, compiler classes often get students to write toy C compilers. I think a lot of students don't understand the meaning of the word "toy". I think this thread is FULL of people like that.
      - icedchai 9mo ago
        I took a compilers course 30 years ago. I have near zero confidence anyone (including myself) could do it. The final project was some sort of toy language for programming robots with an API we were given. Lots of yacc, bison, etc. Lots of segfaults, too.
      - stevejb 9mo ago
        Hey! I built a Lego technic car once 20 years ago. I am fully confident that I can build an actual road worthy electric vehicle. It's just a couple of edge cases and a bit bigger right? /s
viraptor 9mo ago
It's a bit more nuanced. You can build a simple compiler without too many issues. But once you want it to do optimisations, flow control protection, good and fast register allocation, inling, autovectoriasation, etc. that's going to take a multiples of the original time.
rezonant 9mo ago
> Building a working C compiler ... is an impossible task I think you might be thinking of C++
- icedchai 9mo ago
  I’m not. I’ve been working with C on and off for 30 years. Linux requires GNU extensions beyond standard C. Once you get the basics done, there’s still a lot more work to do. Compiling a trivial program might work. But you’ll hit an edge case or 50 in the millions of lines in Linux. I also should’ve qualified my message with “in 2 weeks”, or even “in 2 months.” Given more time it’s obviously possible for more people.
dgacmu 9mo ago
Some of the hardest parts of the compiler are optimization and clear error handling/reporting. If you forego those - because you're testing against a codebase that is already free of things that break compilation and have no particular performance requirements for the generated code - it's a substantially simpler task.
- f1shy 9mo ago
  Making a basic C compiler, without much error/warn detection and/or optimizations, is as a matter if fact no so difficult. In many Universities is a semester project for 2 to 3 students.

vbezhenar 9mo ago

What's so hard about it? Compiler construction is well researched topic and taught in the universities. I made toy language compiler as a student. May be I'm underestimating this task, but I think that I can build some simple C compiler which will output trivial assembly. Given my salary of $2500, that would probably take me around a year, so that's pretty close LoL.

cma 9mo ago
You can one shot prompt a toy C compiler. Getting one that can compile Linux in a bootable way is significantly harder.
- f1shy 9mo ago
  Everybody talks as Linux is the most difficult thing to compile in the world. The reality is that linux is well written and designed with portability with crappy compilers in mind from the beginning. Also, the booting part, as stated some times, is discutable.
  - icedchai 9mo ago
    The reality is you can build Linux with gcc and clang. And that’s it. Years ago you could use Intel’s icc compiler, but that stopped being supported. Let’s stop pretending it’s an undergrad project.
  - cma 9mo ago
    Just writing a non-toy C preprocessor is non-trivial.

fsflover 9mo ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46909529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46909529

icedchai 9mo ago
I’ll be shocked if they are able to do it in 4 months, never mind 4 weeks.
- f1shy 9mo ago
  Have you ever seen Tsoding youtube channel? I’m sure Mr Zosin can very much do it in one week. And considering russian salaries, it will be like an order of magnitude cheaper.

rhubarbtree 9mo ago

Interesting, why impossible? We studied compiler construction at uni. I might have to dig out a few books, but I’m confident I could write one. I can’t imagine anyone on my course of 120 nerds being unable to do this.

menaerus 9mo ago
You are underestimating the complexity of the task so do other people on the thread. It's not trivial to implement a working C compiler very much so to implement the one that proves its worth by successfully compiling one of the largest open-source code repositories ever, which btw is not even a plain ISO C dialect.
- rhubarbtree 9mo ago
  I didn’t say it was trivial. Just that I thought my course mates would be able to do it.
  - qarl 9mo ago
    You thought your course mates would be able to write a C compiler that builds the Linux? Huh. Interesting. Like the other guy pointed out, compiler classes often get students to write toy C compilers. I think a lot of students don't understand the meaning of the word "toy". I think this thread is FULL of people like that.
    - icedchai 9mo ago
      I took a compilers course 30 years ago. I have near zero confidence anyone (including myself) could do it. The final project was some sort of toy language for programming robots with an API we were given. Lots of yacc, bison, etc. Lots of segfaults, too.
    - stevejb 9mo ago
      Hey! I built a Lego technic car once 20 years ago. I am fully confident that I can build an actual road worthy electric vehicle. It's just a couple of edge cases and a bit bigger right? /s

viraptor 9mo ago

It's a bit more nuanced. You can build a simple compiler without too many issues. But once you want it to do optimisations, flow control protection, good and fast register allocation, inling, autovectoriasation, etc. that's going to take a multiples of the original time.

rezonant 9mo ago

> Building a working C compiler ... is an impossible task I think you might be thinking of C++

icedchai 9mo ago
I’m not. I’ve been working with C on and off for 30 years. Linux requires GNU extensions beyond standard C. Once you get the basics done, there’s still a lot more work to do. Compiling a trivial program might work. But you’ll hit an edge case or 50 in the millions of lines in Linux. I also should’ve qualified my message with “in 2 weeks”, or even “in 2 months.” Given more time it’s obviously possible for more people.

dgacmu 9mo ago

Some of the hardest parts of the compiler are optimization and clear error handling/reporting. If you forego those - because you're testing against a codebase that is already free of things that break compilation and have no particular performance requirements for the generated code - it's a substantially simpler task.

f1shy 9mo ago
Making a basic C compiler, without much error/warn detection and/or optimizations, is as a matter if fact no so difficult. In many Universities is a semester project for 2 to 3 students.