Comment by falcor84
8 hours ago
> 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 came close.
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?