CppCon 2019: Matt Godbolt “Compiler Explorer: Behind The Scenes”
CppCon2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2021–2025
talk · intermediate · evergreen · 2021–2025 on HN
Matt Godbolt tells the story of Compiler Explorer, from a hacky basement server to a cloud-scaled service handling tens of thousands of daily requests. He also shows its features and how it is built.
Recommended as the source on how Compiler Explorer began and for its lesser-known features like the machine code analyzer.
Up next
3 mo on HNTwitter and Visual Studio Rant
Molly Rocket
3 HN recommender · 2020–2026
5 mo on HNArithmetic, Population and Energy - a talk by Al Bartlett
lXlSalemlXl
6 HN recommender · 2016–2023
4 mo on HNCppCon 2016: Nicholas Ormrod “The strange details of std::string at Facebook"
CppCon
4 HN recommender · 2018–2026
2 mo on HNThe Forgotten Art of Structured Programming - Kevlin Henney [C++ on Sea 2019]
cpponsea
2 HN recommender · 2021–2022
9 mo on HNLISA11 - Fork Yeah! The Rise and Development of illumos
USENIX
9 HN recommender · 2012–2026
3 mo on HNHow big is a visible photon?
Huygens Optics
3 HN recommender · 2021–2025
11 mo on HNCppCon 2015: Andrei Alexandrescu “std::allocator...”
CppCon
7 HN recommender · 2017–2025
6 mo on HNBOLTR: Juicero, Cold Press Juicer for Rich Weirdos
AvE
6 HN recommender · 2017–2026
13 mo on HNRich Harris - Rethinking reactivity
You Gotta Love Frontend
15 HN recommender · 2019–2026
12 mo on HNLexical Scanning in Go - Rob Pike
GoogleFOSSSydney
13 HN recommender · 2012–2025
12 mo on HNWilliam Byrd on "The Most Beautiful Program Ever Written" [PWL NYC]
PapersWeLove
11 HN recommender · 2017–2026
10 mo on HNCppCon 2016: Jason Turner “Rich Code for Tiny Computers: A Simple Commodore 64 Game in C++17”
CppCon
13 HN recommender · 2016–2024
4 comments from Hacker News
I recently watched the CppCon 2019 talk by Matt Godbolt "Compiler Explorer: Behind The Scenes"[1], and a cool feature he presented is the integrated LLVM Machine Code Analyser tool. If you look at the "timeline" and "resource" views of how a Zen 3 executes a typical assembly snippet, it is absolutely mind blowing. That beast of a CPU has so many resources it's just crazy. [1] ▶ this video
There's a few nice hidden features presented in Matt Godbolt's talk here: ▶ this video As for LLVM IR output, just use the right clang command line options: link Likewise for WASM: link
> But I wonder how common the knowledge is these days ... In one sense, it is less common, as you imply (though perhaps it's more that the number of high-level programmers have ballooned, rather than that the low-level ones have shrunk). In another sense, it's more accessible than ever, with tools like godbolt[1][2], VMs, cool profilers that show you a heatmap overlaid on assembly instructions, etc. And embedded development, where those details matter more, is still going strong, with IoT devices and so forth. [1] part of a presentation on it, if you're not already familiar: ▶ this video [2] the site itself: link
Indeed, for Matt Godbolt, and the whole community that has added the remaining AOT languages, .NET is one of the few missing from Compiler Explorer, but it has a similar one at link and there is one at link for GPGPU shaders. Here is one talk from Matt Godbolt about how Compiler Explorer was born, CppCon 2019: Matt Godbolt “Compiler Explorer: Behind The Scenes” ▶ this video