Driving Compilers (2023)

Summary

Introduction ← → I remember how pleasant it was to learn to program in C. There were so many good books explaining not only the language but also the standard library. I devoured both The C Programming Language (K&R) by Kernighan/Ritchie and The Standard C Library by P.J. Plauger. Then came Expert C Programming by Van der Linden and finally C: A Reference Manual by Harbison and Steele. It was an equally enjoyable experience when I took on C++. I found myself unable to put down the Effective C++ series by Scott Meyers. I loved the simple layout and the astute usage of red text for emphasis. I must have read half the first volume while standing in Toronto World's Biggest Bookstore before I left with the complete series under my arm. I remember power walking to my place to keep on reading. A contrasting experience was to learn how to use the tools to turn my programs into executable. It was a painfully slow and deeply unpleasant process where knowledge was gathered here and there after trial, errors, and a lot of time spent on search engines. It felt like acquiring the same level of comfort to use a compiler took significantly more than learning the language. I blame this experience on the lack of literature on the topic. Most language books start with a "Hello World" code sample. In the case of K&R, it would be hello.c. #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("hello, world\n"); } The reader is given the command to convert that text file into an executable and it is the last time they will hear about how to use the compiler. $ cc hello.c $ ./a.out hello, world This is the gap this series attempts to fill. It won't teach about a language, its libraries, or an SDK. It won't teach how to write a compiler or a linker either. These articles are meant to ease leaving the world of one-file examples. It is a pot-pourri of the things I wish I had known when I was pulling my hair over mysterious LNK2019 and other LNK4002 errors. Here will be explained the core concepts associated...