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An attempt at a single pass LLVM frontend in ~3000 lines of C without external dependencies, malloc, or an AST. Included are some graphical examples. The IR isn't perfect, and the README touches on one particular downfall
HN · launched May 14, 2026 · 102 upvotes (top 9%) · 0 views
Niche: programming language compilers · 77 launches, 2 in the last 7 days ▼ -60% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Retail & commerce
- Marketplace
- B2C
- Not AI
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 77 launches in programming language compilers →
Could you build this?
No Writing a dependency-free, zero-malloc, single-pass LLVM IR compiler frontend in C is a mastery-level systems and compiler engineering challenge.
What it would actually take: This project requires deep compiler engineering knowledge to parse grammar directly into valid LLVM Intermediate Representation without building an intermediate Abstract Syntax Tree (AST). It involves custom symbol table management on a fixed stack or static arena without `malloc`, manual SSA (Static Single Assignment) form construction on the fly, and raw LLVM IR text or bitcode emission within roughly 3,000 lines of highly constrained C.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Firefox reader mode, Plan 9's Glenda
Concerns raised: Nothing special for non-students, Overwhelming sensory elements cause tab-closing instinct
Feature requests: Hide distracting elements feature, Better sensory processing accommodation
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 2216 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #199 of 2217 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 195 days after the earliest competitor.
- Flint · hn · 2026-08-29 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.58
- Iron · hn · 2026-05-27 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.58
- repkgs · github · 2026-09-10 · 49 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- Crespo · hn · 2026-06-22 · 14 upvotes · similarity 0.55
- General_Purpose_Allocator · github · 2026-10-09 · 10 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Tiny-vLLM · hn · 2026-05-29 · 205 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- AX · github · 2026-09-22 · 14 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- nix-compact · github · 2026-09-21 · 16 upvotes · similarity 0.54
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