site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2194 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 5, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I finally did some work on my compiler after a long-ass break. That's a hobby project of mine, to write something that emits a standalone executable. Today I tackled calling conventions. I actually tried to write a patch for QBE to support Win64 calling convention first, but QBE is written in very terse C that I really didn't enjoy deciphering. It's not at atw levels of terseness, of course, but I have an additional excuse to not follow down that path: QBE, in true Unix fashion, doesn't do more than necessary: it reads code written in its own "slightly lower level than C" language and emits sufficiently optimized GAS code for the target architecture. After all, all self-respecting distributions have an assembler and a linker, don't they? Except I want a PE/COFF binary for Windows, which means relying on something like MinGW (and if I have to bring MinGW along, why not just program in C?) or writing the necessary modules myself, like Go.

Now all I need is to write some tests, add SysV and preferably Aarch64 (Win/SysV) calling conventions, factor out common functionality and I'll finally be able to generate some assembly and corrupt the stack.

Have you looked at TCC? It claims to support GAS assembly (as input and intermediate code for C compiling) and compiles for windows (and other platforms). I didn't read all the code but it looks reasonably structured. It's small enough you can incorporate it into a larger project, or use it as a library.

Yes, yes I have. The biggest problem with TCC is that it already exists and is practically feature-complete.

Fuck SysV x64 ABI, seriously. MS calling conventions might be slower, but they are so much easier to implement.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats