Developer's Experience with Compact Compiler Development: Writing C Subset in 1500 Lines
By
FirTheMouse
Not artisan, but a perfectly fine bagel. Hits the spot.
Summary
The article discusses the author's experience with compiler development, challenging the conventional wisdom that compilers must be enormous. The author shares their achievement of writing a subset of C in just 1500 lines and mentions working on a Lisp compiler on the same kernel without modifications. The content appears to be a personal work log or development diary entry from February 14, 2026, with additional notes about seed work from March 14, 2026.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledCompilers are enormous these days, millions of lines spanning frontend to backend to turn text to process on a system.
Any small compiler gets small by making tradeoffs, it constrains itself to a shape small enough that it fits, or simply doesn't implement the features.
That's what I would've believed before I wrote a subset of C in 1500 lines, with the only feature compromises being 'I haven't built that part yet but I could'.
Then, on the same kernel with zero modification, wrote a Lisp c
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