Self-taught from a languages and linguistics background…
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Self-taught from a languages and linguistics background: building a self-hosting compiler taught me what "complete" really means
I studied languages, linguistics, and literature — no formal CS.
I got into the field through curiosity about how languages work, human and formal alike, and ended up chasing that all the way down to building a self-hosting compiler.
The bootstrap was the moment it clicked: you compile the new compiler with an old one, then use the result to compile its own source, and when successive generations are byte-for-byte identical, you've reached a fixed point.
It's not just a milestone, it's a verification — the language has to be real enough to express its own implementation, with nowhere to hide inconsistencies.
Alongside that: a bytecode VM, a distributed key-value store, a synthesizer in pure assembly, and a data science degree.
Everything's public on my GitHub: https://github.com/whispem
to discuss theory or the self-taught route.
#technology
source
Happy
I studied languages, linguistics, and literature — no formal CS.
I got into the field through curiosity about how languages work, human and formal alike, and ended up chasing that all the way down to building a self-hosting compiler.
The bootstrap was the moment it clicked: you compile the new compiler with an old one, then use the result to compile its own source, and when successive generations are byte-for-byte identical, you've reached a fixed point.
It's not just a milestone, it's a verification — the language has to be real enough to express its own implementation, with nowhere to hide inconsistencies.
Alongside that: a bytecode VM, a distributed key-value store, a synthesizer in pure assembly, and a data science degree.
Everything's public on my GitHub: https://github.com/whispem
to discuss theory or the self-taught route.
#technology
source
Happy
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