Diving into toolchains - Cambus.net

submited by
Style Pass
2021-06-08 12:00:11

I've been wanting to learn more about compilers and toolchains in general for a while now. In June 2016, I asked about recommended readings on lexers and parsers on Twitter. However, I have to confess that I didn't go forward with reading the Dragon Book.

Instead, I got involved as a developer in the OpenBSD and NetBSD projects, and witnessing the evolution of toolchains within those systems played a big role in maintaining my interest and fascination in the topic. In retrospective, it now becomes apparent that the work I did on porting and packaging software for those systems really helped to put in perspective how the different parts of the toolchains interact together to produce binaries.

Approximately one year ago, I asked again on Twitter whether I knew anyone having worked on compilers and toolchains professionally to get real world advice on how to gain expertise in the field. I got several interesting answers and started to collect and read more resources on the topic. Some of the links I collected ended up on toolchains.net, a collection of toolchain resources which I put online in February.

But the answer that resonate the most with me was Howard's advice to learn by doing. Because I seem to be the kind of person which need to see some concrete results in order to keep motivated, that's exactly what I decided to do.

Leave a Comment