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Explore the development of a revolutionary self-hosted C compiler that operates across multiple platforms through an innovative multi-language approach in this 14-minute conference talk. Discover how cjsawk solves the persistent challenge of inconsistent C compiler availability across different systems by creating a compiler written in a unique dialect that is simultaneously valid in C, JavaScript, and AWK. Learn about the technical implementation including the recursive descent parser, tokenizer, macro assembler, and linker components that enable this cross-platform functionality. Understand how the compiler can bootstrap itself bit-identically across Linux, Node.js, web browsers, and AWK interpreters, ensuring reproducible builds regardless of the target system. Examine the compiler's architecture covering global and function declaration handling, expression processing, and the use of inline macro assembly for operations not expressible in the limited language subset such as divide or bitwise operations. Gain insights into how cjsawk can bootstrap a C99 compiler and extend to build a full GCC toolchain, making it a practical solution for cross-platform development. Discover the language design decisions that maintain consistency across the three target languages while preserving the compiler's self-hosting capability and portability features.
