#compilers

[olmewe]

do you guys remember when i used to draw the compilers dragons as lesbians and post them on this very website 6 years ago

[savagegardensprogramming]

Programs expressed using tree structures

Officially they are called abstract syntax trees. Sometimes referred to as token trees. If you look at the images (a) thru (g) you can see the progression of how code can be represented as tree structures. Evaluating this tree is the same as executing the code.

A compiler parses your code and converts it into these tree structures before generating code. At first compilers would take the approach similar to an assembler. It would go line by line. Converting each line to code before going to the next one. That is a linear path. But then about half a century ago there were debates and discussions about structured programming and restraining the goto statement.

These trees represent the structure in structured programming. They got rid of line numbers and introduced scope rules. Code is better organized this way. One down side was that they had to discourage the use of the goto statement. Because the goto statement is like Neo in the Matrix. Its like a wild monkey that can jump to any branch it wants to. Thus breaking structure.

Anyways the brain loves this structure. For starters you can see the "chunking" right. You can see the "divide and conquer" approach. Encapsulation is also there. Every node in the tree, encapsulates its branches. For example in the example (g) the [for loop] node encapsulates the content of the for loop in its branches.

In our brain Hayakawa's ladder of abstraction is not a linear ladder. Its one of these. Its an abstract syntax tree. Our brain can go up and down these trees with with ease.

[otesunki]

i'm writing an entirely normal programming language

there is nothing strange or weird about my programming language it is a perfectly normal programming language with an extremely ordinary typesystem

[blubberquark]

Nothing encapsulates my misgivings with Docker as much as this recent story. I wanted to deploy a PyGame-CE game as a static executable, and that means compiling CPython and PyGame statically, and then linking the two together. To compile PyGame statically, I need to statically link it to SDL2, but because of SDL2 special features, the SDL2 code can be replaced with a different version at runtime.

I tried, and failed, to do this. I could compile a certain version of CPython, but some of the dependencies of the latest CPython gave me trouble. I could compile PyGame with a simple makefile, but it was more difficult with meson.

Instead of doing this by hand, I started to write a Dockerfile. It's just too easy to get this wrong otherwise, or at least not get it right in a reproducible fashion. Although everything I was doing was just statically compiled, and it should all have worked with a shell script, it didn't work with a shell script in practice, because cmake, meson, and autotools all leak bits and pieces of my host system into the final product. Some things, like libGL, should never be linked into or distributed with my executable.

I also thought that, if I was already working with static compilation, I could just link PyGame-CE against cosmopolitan libc, and have the SDL2 pieces replaced with a dynamically linked libSDL2 for the target platform.

I ran into some trouble. I asked for help online.

The first answer I got was "You should just use PyInstaller for deployment"

The second answer was "You should use Docker for application deployment. Just start with

FROM python:3.11

and go from there"

The others agreed. I couldn't get through to them.

It's the perfect example of Docker users seeing Docker as the solution for everything, even when I was already using Docker (actually Podman).

I think in the long run, Docker has already caused, and will continue to cause, these problems:

Over-reliance on containerisation is slowly making build processes, dependencies, and deployment more brittle than necessary, because it still works in Docker

Over-reliance on containerisation is making the actual build process outside of a container or even in a container based on a different image more painful, as well as multi-stage build processes when dependencies want to be built in their own containers

Container specifications usually don't even take advantage of a known static build environment, for example by hard-coding a makefile, negating the savings in complexity

[homotexas]

every day i wake up and reimplement shunting yard

[osakanone]

This applies just as much to programming.

You don't become fluent in a language, you become fluent in styles and techniques with an intended audience or use-case.

Without exception, if you ever meet anybody who insists they know every weird behavior of a programming language, they are either lying to you, or they have written a robust compiler.

There is no such thing as a "full stack developer".

Its a cultural myth invented by HR to force more responsibilities onto a smaller number of people to save costs. They literally factor in the burn-out rates of programmer productivity and the turnover rate as people leave due to the abuse.

These are the uncomfortable truths:

There will always be weird edge-cases

you cannot anticipate when you are outside of your fluentsy zone.

This goes double if you are using a library or dialect you did not write.

This goes triple if someone else is using a library or dialect you wrote.

There are zero exceptions to this rule

Your manager will never factor this in

They expect you to leave every three years

You will hop from company to company hoping to find "the good one"

You will never find it unless you make it yourself

If you get big, HR will eventually ruin it on purpose

Our current crisis exists because nobody stays around long enough to develop institutional knowledge, so VERY IMPORTANT THINGS literally being forgotten.

THIS APPLIES JUST AS MUCH IF NOT MORE TO SPOKEN LANGUAGE

This Twitter thread really spoke to me. I wanted to share it with anyone who hasn’t seen it. 

[twentythousandvolts]

early stages of friendship are Soooo embarrassing like yea sorry....... it's me again............ i enjoy talking to you and spending time with you....... you can shoot me point blank if you want i dont mind

[word-count-bullet-count]

I've been seeing a lot of knight posts recently. pretty great

[literaryvein-references]

When your Character...

Gets into: A Fight �� ...Another Fight ⚜ ...Yet Another Fight

Hates Someone ⚜ Kisses Someone ⚜ Falls in Love

Calls Someone they Love ⚜ Dies / Cheats Death ⚜ Drowns

is...

A Ballerina ⚜ A Child ⚜ Interacting with a Child ⚜ A Cheerleader

A Cowboy ⚜ A Genius ⚜ A Lawyer ⚜ A Pirate ⚜ A Spy

A Wheelchair User ⚜ A Zombie ⚜ Beautiful ⚜ Dangerous ⚜ Drunk

Funny ⚜ In a Coma ⚜ In a Secret Society ⚜ Injured ⚜ Shy

needs...

A Magical Item ⚜ An Aphrodisiac ⚜ A Fictional Poison

A Coping Strategy ⚜ A Drink ⚜ A Medicinal Herb ⚜ A Mentor

Money ⚜ A Persuasion Tactic ⚜ A Quirk ⚜ To be Killed Off

To Become Likable ⚜ To Clean a Wound ⚜ To Self-Reflect

To Find the Right Word, but Can't ⚜ To Say No ⚜ To Swear

loves...

Astronomy ⚜ Baking ⚜ Cooking ⚜ Cocktails ⚜ Food ⚜ Oils

Dancing ⚜ Fashion ⚜ Gems ⚜ Herbal Remedies ⚜ Honey

Mushrooms ⚜ Mythology ⚜ Numbers ⚜ Perfumes

Roses ⚜ Sweets ⚜ To Argue ⚜ To Insult ⚜ To Kiss

To Make False Claims ⚜ Wine ⚜ Wine-Tasting ⚜ Yoga

has/experiences...

Allergies ⚜ Amnesia ⚜ Bereavement ⚜ Bites & Stings

Bruises ⚜ Caffeine ⚜ CO Poisoning ⚜ Color Blindness

Facial Hair ⚜ Fainting ⚜ Fevers ⚜ Food Allergies

Food Poisoning ⚜ Fractures ⚜ Frostbite ⚜ Hypothermia

Injuries ⚜ Jet Lag ⚜ Kidnapping ⚜ Manipulation ⚜ Mutism

Pain ⚜ Paranoia ⚜ Poisoning ⚜ More Pain & Violence

Scars ⚜ Trauma ⚜ Viruses ⚜ Wounds

[these are just quick references. more research may be needed to write your story...]

Writing Resources PDFs

[gnutools]

LLVM Weekly - #589, April 14th 2025

See you at EuroLLVM, Qualcomm open sources ELD linker, UEFI platform in LLVM libc, major debug intrinsics removal milestone, type-aware allocation/deallocation, Haiku sanitizer support, and more

[mimimar]

(open pages for better image quality)

the moment I heard elphaba's delivery of "there's a girl i know..." in i'm not that girl i knew i had to draw this comic, i strongly recommend listening to it while you read for the full experience!

this comic is a companion to this piece (which was inspired by glinda's delivery of the same line in the i'm not that girl reprise).

pages 1-4 are from elphie's pov, pages 5-8 are from glinda's.

prints of individual pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

flower meanings in order of appearance:

[dunmeshistash]

Dungeon Meshi - Laios & Falin

[spookberry]

Its past their bedtime

[baravaggio]

one of my favorite facts about gekko hayashi (artist who drew gay erotica) is that he was straight guy who pivoted from sci-fi & monster stuff to illustrating for gay & bdsm mags at like 50 years old because he wanted to expand his artistic horizons, and compensated by lack of lived experience by setting up a phone line for gay men to call in & recount their stories so he could illustrate them...legend

[brightdeadthing]

love as recognition

anna gavalda / friedrich nietzsche / clarice lispector / jandy nelson / rebecca perry / mhairi mcfarlane