Is Go A Good Language to Build Compilers?
summary
Argues Go fits compiler work because it balances readability, productivity and speed, and enables easy cross compilation; demonstrates a working interpreter plus an LLVM-backed compile path using custom lexer and parser that produces correct results (for-loop example yields 8; a function-expression demo yields 20). Uses Go runtime for built-ins and plans to bootstrap to a native compiler; attempts LLVM integration rely on tinygo/LLVM bindings because official Go bindings are deprecated. Notes postponed PGO, aims for async IO via io_uring and future memory management.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Introduction and background
- 3:15Why Go for compilers
- 10:07Project overview and structure
- 14:26Interpreter demo and code walkthrough
- 22:04Lexer and parser implementation
- 26:27Challenges and limitations
- 30:45Using LLVM with Go
- 36:59Conclusion and recommendations
