> I think the viewpoint that your're missing is: how do I make sure the machine code means the same thing as the source code?
Ooo, no. I already have an AST. When writing the code gen for a node type in the AST, I normally start by typing a few lines of C into godbolt that exercises the same kind of thing represented by the node type. I try a few different compilers and optimization settings and look at what gets generated. I pick an approach that looks simple and good enough. Then I ask an AI to assemble the instructions I see the compilers using. I like to ask an AI to do this because it will explain what all the bits do in the instruction encoding and it is less error prone at reading the ISA docs than I am. The description from the AI might prompt me to ask things like, "what if the jump target doesn't fit in the 32-bit immediate" etc.
All I was claiming was that this is easier than generating code for a byte code of my invention, partly because I don't have to invent a byte code and partly because I can use existing tools to help, eg disassemblers/debuggers to check my output or compilers to give me ideas on how to convert C-like statements into machine code.
I don't have any IR at the moment. I'll have a think about what benefits that might bring.
The reason I posted my project under this top level thread is because I'm interested in Small Programs and Languages. My experiment is in what I can remove from a language implementation to make it simpler. Adding a dependency on LLVM is the opposite of what I had in mind :-)
There are many reasons I'm writing it in C but mainly because I like C.
Ooo, no. I already have an AST. When writing the code gen for a node type in the AST, I normally start by typing a few lines of C into godbolt that exercises the same kind of thing represented by the node type. I try a few different compilers and optimization settings and look at what gets generated. I pick an approach that looks simple and good enough. Then I ask an AI to assemble the instructions I see the compilers using. I like to ask an AI to do this because it will explain what all the bits do in the instruction encoding and it is less error prone at reading the ISA docs than I am. The description from the AI might prompt me to ask things like, "what if the jump target doesn't fit in the 32-bit immediate" etc.
All I was claiming was that this is easier than generating code for a byte code of my invention, partly because I don't have to invent a byte code and partly because I can use existing tools to help, eg disassemblers/debuggers to check my output or compilers to give me ideas on how to convert C-like statements into machine code.
I don't have any IR at the moment. I'll have a think about what benefits that might bring.
The reason I posted my project under this top level thread is because I'm interested in Small Programs and Languages. My experiment is in what I can remove from a language implementation to make it simpler. Adding a dependency on LLVM is the opposite of what I had in mind :-)
There are many reasons I'm writing it in C but mainly because I like C.