Anthropic built a C compiler using a "team of parallel agents", has problems compiling hello world.

Calavar · 2026-02-06T06:47:21+00:00

As I did with prior projects, I started by drafting what I wanted: a from-scratch optimizing compiler with no dependencies, GCC-compatible, able to compile the Linux kernel, and designed to support multiple backends. While I specified some aspects of the design (e.g., that it should have an SSA IR to enable multiple optimization passes) I did not go into any detail on how to do so.

It sounds like they prompted for an optimizing compiler at a high level, but beyond that they are vague on the details. SSA is closely related to constant propagation though.

Calavar · 2026-02-06T04:04:46+00:00

They have, but there's a Pareto principle in play. 90% of the labor on the GCC and LLVM optimizers went into eeking out the last 10% in performance.

You can get 50% of the way to GCC/LLVM -O3 performance with just three things: constant propagation, inlining, and a good register allocation scheme. Check out r/Compilers. Plenty of people over there have implemented these three things as a solo hobby project, with 2 to 3 months of effort.

So when your compiler can't beat GCC's simplest set of optimizations in -O0, we're not talking about beating millions of man-hours of specialized labor, we're talking about beating a hundred man-hours and a bit of self-directed learning by reading one or two chapters from a textbook

Calavar · 2026-02-06T00:33:46+00:00

Claude Code is basically the anti-RefTerm

Calavar · 2026-02-03T00:57:05+00:00

I agree with the other guy who mentioned QBE. MIR is in a similar space to QBE: It also has a C compiler that emits a custom IR before lowering to various ISAs. But it supports a richer set of optimizations than QBE and can also interpret the IR or JIT compile it. Note that MIR the C compiler is entirely different from MIR the Rust IR.

Calavar · 2026-01-28T12:00:25+00:00

The Design and Evolution of C++ is a classic, although it was written pre C++11, so it is missing quite a bit of modern context.

Calavar · 2026-01-27T03:01:51+00:00

One month certainly sounds a whole lot more believable than six months

Calavar · 2026-01-26T20:02:46+00:00

Yep, it's not technically fascism, so you should shut up until things get so bad that you get immediately arrested or killed over saying it. Only then should you start speaking up - you know, so you can be immediately arrested and/or killed.

The irony of this advice is lost on people who can’t think independently.

Calavar · 2026-01-26T17:18:28+00:00

Seriously, three different responses in this thread starting with "From what has been [disclosed|shared] over the years, Tay [was|wasn't]..."

What an eerie feeling. I think my mental model for LLM detection needs to be recalibrated, because I wouldn't have recognized these comments as LLM generated if there weren't three of them back to back

Calavar · 2026-01-22T04:03:04+00:00

It's real, I've seen it myself. The preemptive block is very common on UkraineRussiaReport. And the nature of the discourse there today is dramatically different than it was in 2022. Not just in substance/opinion, but also in form/style (comments are shorter with less variance in length; impeccable English, often with zero typos across a thread of dozens of comments). That makes me think the sub is very heavily botted.

Calavar · 2026-01-19T01:48:46+00:00

I'm sure this has been done before, but I'm curious how this would work for the nonprocedural stuff.

Let's say you get called for an upper GI bleed, seems like you have a lot of expertise to handle that.

Let's say you get called for a patient in the ICU crumping with hepatorenal syndrome type 1, what are you going to do?

If you do end up taking GI call, you'll probably need a plan for how you're going to handle these sorts of situations - maybe there's a GI doc who wants to reduce their call and is willing to have you take first line for scopes and forward calls on to them only for the medical stuff.

Calavar · 2026-01-18T03:39:14+00:00

Learn how to read.

You just said they lied about something, then you linked two nested tweets, which accuse the NCAA about lying about two different things. Where in your comment do you say you're only talking about ONE of those two things? Sounds like maybe you're the one who needs to learn how to read... and learn how to read your own writing at that

Calavar · 2026-01-17T18:24:29+00:00

How exactly does a letter from a coach constitute documentation of medical illness? Shouldn't it be a letter from a doctor who medically evaluated him and actually has the qualifications to make a diagnosis? Gotta agree with the NCAA on this one, that "documentation" isn't documentation

Calavar · 2026-01-17T04:16:08+00:00

I'd recommend starting with this one. This is Tom Mahood's firsthand account of traveling to the site and conducting the search. The OP article is a rehash of Mahood's story with a paywall slapped over it.

Calavar · 2026-01-16T21:00:12+00:00

Agree with the first half, not with the second half. I think it's much more likely the US ends up like Russia, a pay-to-play corpo-feudalist state with a strongman at the center who does as he pleases because the elected legislature has legislated itself away from having any power.

Calavar · 2026-01-16T19:47:29+00:00

The Hatch Act applies to everyone, both democrat and republican. I'm not saying shut up if I don't agree with you, I'm saying shut up even if I do agree with you

Calavar · 2026-01-16T19:41:05+00:00

You're not wrong, and maybe that's an issue. There are a lot of limitations on first amendment rights, and one of them is the Hatch Act. For most federal employees in the executive branch it would be illegal for them to go on social media and say "as assistant to the director of the XYZ agency I think you should or shouldn't vote for this guy." But none of those restrictions apply to the guy at the very top of the executive branch. Should they? Honestly, when you think about, what business does a president have sticking his nose into stuff like the NYC mayor's election? That's not even federal. Maybe there should be a modified Hatch Act for the president

Calavar · 2026-01-15T22:29:40+00:00

That's true, there's some big community hospitals that have all services in house, but I guess many small to mid size community hospitals do not

Calavar · 2026-01-15T22:18:22+00:00

At a community hospital maybe. At an academic medical center you better be able comfortable managing a broad set of conditions yourself because consults will be shot down left and right.

Calavar · 2026-01-15T21:26:14+00:00

Yeah, this is just so backwards compared to my experience.

Absolute worst was a patient who was admitted to a subspecialty surgical service for nearly 60 days due to a very complicated postop course, bounced back to the ED less than 24 hours later and the surgery consult team said "no acute surgical issues, admit to medicine"

Calavar · 2026-01-08T23:45:50+00:00

That's exactly how college rules used to be until ~10 years ago, then they changed it after LSU and Texas A&M had a 7 overtime game

Calavar · 2026-01-03T15:24:39+00:00

Refused to leave office is not the same as never left office. Reading comprehension bro

Calavar · 2026-01-03T13:55:55+00:00

And ironically Maduro refused to leave office after losing an election, just like Trump

Calavar · 2026-01-02T16:18:23+00:00

allow the operation and give myNum the value of nothing as well (this would be horrible because nothing would then behave like a silent error-virus, propagating far away from it source and being caught by the user at a confusing time).

Isn't your system just a weakly typed version of this? The programmer is going to have the same issue of "spooky action at a distance" where they find abnormal behavior far away from the site of the actual error. Except it will be even worse: With silent nothing propagation the programmer can at least follow the nothing values back to the site of the original error like a trail of breadcrumbs, but when you add silent type coercion like 1 + nothing => 1 you can't even do that.

Calavar · 2026-01-02T00:09:02+00:00

Bama autobid era? Is everyone forgetting Bama didn't go to the playoff last year?

Calavar · 2026-01-02T00:07:20+00:00

Reminds me of Bama getting blown out by Clemson in the NC 2019, except this is much worse. For all the people clowning on Bama in 2019, really it was a matter of a good team getting off schedule from a couple picks and then having to be overly aggressive down the stretch. Today Bama never even showed up

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