Internals of GCC

Compilers are a tool that most programmers don't think about, we are used to high performance, quality compilers that we just use them and give them as granted. However, know I find very interesting to learn how a compiler works, how it interprets my code, how it optimizes it, the components of the compiler and all the parts that form it. This is also really important because learning the low level of a compiler could be useful in another areas of software engineering.

Thanks god we live in an era that computer software is really advance, in most cases we work with compilers as black boxes, we write the program and the compiler do all the hard works for use, I'm not saying writing a good program is easy, but we now just work with high-level stuff. 

This week, we listen to the podcast "Internals of GCC" by Software Engineering Radio with Morgan Deters as guest. The podcast does not get too technical, but it gives us enough to understand more than just the high-level stuff, it gives us a description of all the different phases of the GCC. In my opinion the most interesting one is the optimization process, because how is a methodology process, and it optimizes almost every step of the program.  It is really a good podcast that had a great balance between technical stuff and a way for everyone to understand it.

To finish this post, I really liked that this podcast give us a sneak peek of what we are going to face in class (Compile Design) and a description of what are the phases. Even do it sound crazy to build a compiler, you just need to understand the phases of the process and with a guide, you are ready to go.