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Comment by MaxBarraclough | Hacker News Reader

This is just silly. No, a C++ compiler cannot be as easy to change as it is to use. Come on now.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it's (or should be) "as easy to change", but making compilers that allow for modification is not novel or unusual: Clang lets you load optimizer plugins written in C++, for example; Rust lets you write macros in Rust itself that give you access to the token stream, and Lisps, of course, are homoiconic.

Solution: make the C++ compiler harder to use!

Of course it can. You can do pretty much anything you like with software as long as you have the vision. A plugin/extension architecture can certainly make modifying a compiler easy. What makes you think it can't?

Except it doesn't work like that. Sensible architecture doesn't make compiler engineering trivial.

Compiler engineering is a highly technical area of software engineering. Think an average C++ programmer could take an old C++ compiler like OpenWatcom and make the necessary improvements to make it comply with the latest C++ language standard? Not a chance, that would be the work of a lifetime. They might have a shot at making small contributions to a compiler, but they'd have to set their sights quite low.

Another example might be operating systems. The abstractions offered by modern operating systems are terribly easy to use, but there's a high skills barrier to doing meaningful work on the kernel. Similarly, the average web developer stands little chance of making a contribution to V8 or WebKit.

This strikes me as analogous to discussing whether it should be harder to design and build a car, than to drive one. I don't like to be uncharitable but I stand by my earlier choice of words: this is silliness. Difficult engineering fields cannot be made easy.

I see that another commenter, 'gm', has done a good job expressing similar points.

For compilers that are written in C++, changing the compiler is using it. ;)

I leave this for you without comment: http://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2020/04/your-statement-is-100...

FWIW, I consider posting a link that has a title matching the point you're trying to make, without further clarification or constructive feedback, fairly lazy.

My effort matches that of the person I was replying to. But yeah overall a bit out of character for me. Extremely polarizing examples to deter something could be progress is a pet peeve.

When possible, I think it's nice to aim for something better than that. While brusque, I don't think I the comment was in bad faith, so I think it deserved better.

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