2 #+AUTHOR: Richard Westhaver <ellis@rwest.io>
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7 If we've spoken recently I may have mentioned this new venture I've
8 been working on. Now is the time to elaborate on what I've been up to,
11 * The Compiler Company 12 The name is a play on the phrase
/Compiler Collection/, as in
[[https://gcc.gnu.org/][GNU 13 Compiler Collection (GCC)]] and emphasizes my approach to
14 problem-solving involving compiler technologies.
16 I recently registered as an LLC, but the purpose of the company is
17 that of a company incubator, or
/company compiler/ if you will. In
18 other words, I intend for
/The Compiler Company, LLC/ to be a hub for
19 developing various interconnected products and services which can be
20 operated and managed independently of each other.
22 I (Richard Westhaver) am the sole owner and operator and will probably
23 keep it that way for quite some time. My intention is to operate at
24 minimal cost while I perform industry research and develop prototypes.
26 To support the company's purpose, I am developing a suite of free and
27 open-source software which is specifically designed for bootstrapping
28 and operating
=companies=.
32 The software provided by
/The Compiler Company/ is a powerful
33 development environment. It is the catalyst of engineering for every
34 other software component I build and reflects precisely how I believe
35 software should be developed.
37 As a whole, I optimize for the following features in my environment:
38 - early adoption :: integrate research, protocols, libraries, and
39 hardware features from leading research orgs faster than anyone else
40 - rapid development :: interaction, code introspection, tooling, and
41 automation built for prototyping at massive scale
42 - power :: using our environment should feel like cheating - macros,
43 DSLs, and unmatched hackability
46 /The Compiler Company/ is above all, a
=Lisp Company=. The most
47 powerful software requires the most powerful language.
49 Lisp isn't enough though.
=Rust= is our imperative language of choice
50 at the time of writing and generally suited for system-level software
53 We make use of the Steel Bank Common Lisp compiler (SBCL) and the
54 nightly Rust compiler toolchain.
56 *** Operating System Support 57 /The Compiler Company/ is a Linux Company. There may be minimal
58 support for Darwin-based systems, but Microsoft Windows systems will
59 never be supported by our software.
61 One of the
/anti-goals/ of our software is
~portability~. For all of
62 the features we optimize for, portability becomes a burden, especially
63 with closed-source OS kernels. We are also explicitly driven to reduce
64 consumer dependence on these closed-source systems, especially in a
65 distributed network. They are simply unfit for use with the software
73 We have a long way to go. The important thing is to keep up the
74 momentum. Before the start of 2024 you can expect another update on
75 some of the projects below.
76 ** the.compiler.company
