Basile Starynkevitch <bas...@starynkevitch.net> writes: > Hello Bright Andoh, > >> >> My name is Bright Andoh, and I’m a Computer Engineering student at the >> University of Alabama. I’m wrapping up my freshman year and have >> experience working with Rust and C. Last fall, I collaborated on some >> Rust projects with a friend, and I’m eager to deepen my understanding, >> especially in compiler development and large codebases. >> > > Long time ago, I did contribute to GCC (its plugin infrastructure). > https://arxiv.org/pdf/1109.0779 (perhaps this paper could be relevant to you) > > A possible approach to your goal might be: > > become familiar with GCC code base so be able to compile it (on a Linux > computer) from source code. Be prepared to spend a few days on that. > > be able to run the GDB debugger on the GCC compiler (actually its cc1). Be > prepared to spend a few days on that. > > study the source code of the existing Rust compiler > https://www.rust-lang.org/, > only the front-end (e.g. macros & ownership things). > > Adapt it to GCC using libgccjit. This means understanding the current rust > compiler internals and using libgccjit to feed GCC. > > https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/jit/ > > so my suggestion could be to prototype your Rust frontend as a GCC plugin (and > reuse as much as possible existing frontend from https://www.rust-lang.org/) >
I'm sorry, but this advice is mistaken/misplaced. GCC *has* a rust frontend in-tree and it's one of our listed GSoC ideas to help contribute to it at https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/SummerOfCode#Selected_Project_Ideas. Not only that, there is additionally a libgccjit backend for the rust-lang.org implementation of rustc, see https://github.com/rust-lang/rustc_codegen_gcc. But this contributor is asking about the former. > Be sure to put your experimental code on some publicly available website > (github > or something else) for other to review it. > > BTW my current open source project is an inference engine, on > https://github.com/RefPerSys/RefPerSys/ > > > Thanks
