Source: CCC vs GCC

  1. Anthropic’s Claude’s C Compiler (CCC) was tested against GCC, with claims it could compile the Linux kernel.
  2. Compilers are complex, involving preprocessor, compiler, assembler, and linker stages; CCC attempts to implement all from scratch.
  3. CCC successfully compiled all C source files of the Linux 6.9 kernel but failed at the linking stage due to incorrect relocation entries and symbol table entries.
  4. For SQLite, CCC compiled correctly but produced significantly slower (737x-158,000x) and larger binaries (2.7-3x) compared to GCC.
  5. CCC used 5.9x more memory during compilation for SQLite than GCC and its compilation speed for SQLite was 1.3x slower at -O0.
  6. The primary reason for CCC’s slow runtime performance is excessive register spilling, leading to frequent and slow memory access.
  7. CCC’s optimization flags (e.g., -O2) have no effect, producing identical output to -O0, unlike GCC which significantly optimizes code.
  8. CCC-compiled binaries lack proper debug information, frame pointers, and function symbols, making debugging and profiling impossible.
  9. A “Hello World” example failed to compile initially with CCC due to missing system include paths for standard headers, highlighting basic functionality issues.
  10. While CCC demonstrates Claude’s ability to build complex software, it is not practical for efficient real-world compilation compared to established compilers like GCC.