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Diffstat (limited to 'README.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 15 |
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 7 deletions
@@ -11,14 +11,15 @@ executable, and the last one will be a C compiler. Each directory has its own README explaining what's going on. You can run `bootstrap.sh` to run through and test every stage. +To get HTML versions of all README pages, run `make`. ## the basics In this series, I want to explain *everything* that's going on. I'm going to -need to assume some passing knowledge about computers, but here's a quick -overview of what you'll want to know before starting. I can't explain everything -so you may need to do your own research. You don't need to understand each of -these in full, just get a general idea at least: +need to assume some passing knowledge, so here's a quick overview of what you'll +want to know before starting. I can't explain everything so you may need to do +your own research. You don't need to understand each of these in full, just get +a general idea at least: - what an operating system is - what memory is @@ -59,8 +60,8 @@ not right away. Bootstrapping a compiler is not an easy task, so we're trying to make it as easy as possible. We don't even necessarily need a standard-compliant C compiler, we -only need enough to compile someone else's C compiler, specifically TCC -(https://bellard.org/tcc/) since that's a compiler with very few dependencies. +only need enough to compile someone else's C compiler, specifically we'll be +using [TCC](https://bellard.org/tcc/) since it's written in standard C89. - efficiency is not a concern @@ -71,7 +72,7 @@ with itself, we'll get the same executable either way. ## reflections on trusting trust In 1984, Ken Thompson wrote the well-known article -[*Reflections on Trusting Trust*](http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf). +[Reflections on Trusting Trust](http://users.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf). This is one of the things that inspired me to start this project. To summarize the article: it is possible to create a malicious C compiler which will replicate its own malicious functionalities (e.g. detecting password-checking |