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@jschauma FFS when can folks stop making these gratuitous compounding build/bootstrapping dependencies? Ruby needing Rust is probably reasonable. Rust needing Python and Perl is nothing but laziness and cost externalization.

@dalias @jschauma I'd like if it were more common to bootstrap compilers & interpreters and make some basic frontend in GCC to shortcircuit that.

So you get the GCC bootstrap & then instantly can move on to anything.

https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/tags/bootstrapping/

@lispi314 @dalias @jschauma I try not to over-toot the horn of whatever I happen to be working on, but this seems like a plausible job for Go. Few dependencies, easy cross-platform builds.

@dr2chase @jschauma Yeah, GCCGO is a thing, it isn't up to the current versions but contributions could change that.

@lispi314 @dr2chase @jschauma why do you want GCC in there? What advantage does it bring outside the main toolchain?

@cbehopkins @dr2chase @jschauma It's the main compiler involved in the only reduced binary bootstrap seed project (https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2020/guix-further-reduces-bootstrap-seed-to-25/) I'm aware of.

As for Golang specifically, it weakens the Google domination, which I find valuable in itself.

Of course, making an interpreter instead of a GCC frontend & using that to compile a self-hosting compiler works too (you still need to compile that interpreter too at some point unless you write in assembler I guess, then you assemble it).

@cbehopkins @dr2chase @jschauma But then that begs the question, why make yet another compiler instead of reusing the optimization & portability work already done by others before you?

Having a compiler implemented in a safe language is a valid answer to that question, but it does mean you're willing to trade-off portability (or a lot more work to be done) in exchange for it.

@lispi314 @dr2chase @jschauma thanks, think I understand your concerns now, never had to deal with auditability of the toolchain as a concern before.

I guess I don't see c as a safe language, so in many ways, problematic (or maybe that's too many years arguing Misra rules with coworkers ;-))
Thanks

@cbehopkins Unauditable code-size, more specifically.

Golang requires Golang to build.

Currently that means that Guix, in order to not accept arbitrary binary blobs from Google to build Golang, has to start from Golang 1.4 & iteratively build each following one up to the current version.

A Golang interpreter or sufficent GCC frontend (like GCCGO is intended to be) would also short-circuit that chain of builds so that one could build the final Go compiler (in Golang) directly.

@cstross @lispi314 @dalias @jschauma if you're gonna go that far your might as well go all the way to brainfuck

@ArneBab @dalias @jschauma That certainly does look like what I'm suggesting.

It'd make for an alternative bootstrap option usable for instance in #Guix (https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/packages/rust.scm), but from the project goals it would also eventually become an entirely distinct valid compiler for Rust, which seems quite desirable for me.

@lispi314 Also see python-on-guile: https://gitlab.com/python-on-guile/python-on-guile

#Guile has a minimal #bootstrap path via MES: https://www.gnu.org/software/mes/

#python

@dalias @jschauma

@lispi314 sidenote: that #guile bootstrap path was developed for #guix :

GNU Mes (maxwell equations of software) provides a minimal #scheme interpreter and C #compiler with tooling to build #tinycc that can be used with the Mes C library to compile glibc-2.2.5, binutils-2.20.1, gcc-2.95.3 with which you can build the whole #GNU system.

Thanks to #GCCrs that will soon include #Rust

Thanks to #Python on Guile it includes a shortcut for compatible Python-based tooling.
#GCC
@dalias @jschauma

@lispi314 and Mes was created by @janneke and in later stages supported by NLnet: https://nlnet.nl/project/GNUMes/ @dalias @jschauma

@miksi @jschauma It ends at Smalltalk, which is written in Smalltalk. Recursive turtles in that case. :-)

@cstross @miksi @jschauma you still need to bootstrap your C compiler...

@mhagdorn @cstross @miksi @jschauma Nevermind.

@resuna @jschauma Aha! #tcl still depends on C though

@CGM @jschauma Everything more complex than Forth depends on C, and has since Modula 2 fizzled out. It’s the carbon chain of computing.

@farcaller @jschauma :) Pretty sure Jan knows Perl

@petealexharris @jschauma wait, awk is illegal too, now? What's the modern solution to printing the 3rd column of whatever the output is?

@farcaller @petealexharris @jschauma cut -d <delimiter> -f 3

@ives @petealexharris @jschauma cut kinda sucks at the job when it's space-padded. Or if I can't visually tell if that's a space or a tab. Awk works all the time every time.

@farcaller @ives @jschauma
I do quite like awk, but I always have Python handy anyway, so unless something is super trivial, it'll be quicker for me to pop up a Python shell than re-read the awk man page.

@hornlo the lengths people would go for only not to use awk!

@ives @jschauma
A short thread on the Thompson hack.
I think our group was the only one to detect it.
https://mstdn.social/@JohnMashey/109991275086879095