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C4 – C in 4 functions

(github.com)
517 points petercooper | 1 comments | 04 Nov 14 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.205s | source
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marcofiset ◴[04 Nov 14 20:56 UTC] No.8558994[source]▶
I honestly think this is ridiculous. Sure, this is an incredible feat, and congrats. But serioulsy, I would be ashamed to publish such unreadable code under my name.

What about naming your variables with descriptive names?

What about extracting complex conditions into well named function to understand what is going on (thus defeating the purpose of the "4 functions") ?

This list could go on forever...

Writing software is not a contest for who can write the most amount of code in the most cryptic way.

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cbhl ◴[04 Nov 14 21:13 UTC] No.8559071[source]▶
I actually found the code surprisingly easy to read; "tk" stands for "token", "ty" for "type", and so forth.

It's worth noting that compilers don't pop out of thin air -- you have to start with something simple in order to compile a more complicated compiler. Bootstrapping your own self-hosting compiler is a useful academic exercise, and you should try it sometime if you haven't already: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_(compilers)

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marcofiset ◴[04 Nov 14 21:22 UTC] No.8559108[source]▶
Well, if this particular compiler is defined in 4 functions, why couldn't it be made out of more functions, enhancing the readability and maintainability of the code?
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1. cbhl ◴[04 Nov 14 21:46 UTC] No.8559242[source]▶
There is no reason why couldn't it be made out of more functions. Absolutely none. In fact, you can fork the repository and do the refactoring yourself, right now.

If I had to guess, the functions are tied pretty closely to how the author is parsing the file; "next" (next token), "expr" (expression), "stmt" (statement), and "main".

As for the project being called "C in 4 functions"; at best, I'd argue that's just a linkbait-y title since it's not actually C (it's a subset). I don't have a problem with the code _per se_; just the title.