I really enjoyed this conversation with Chris. We could've easily talked for many more hours. Compiling code down across levels of abstraction is one of the most fundamental and fascinating aspects of what computers do, and he is one of the top experts in the world in this process, its rigorous science and it's messy beautiful art. Here's the high-level outline: 0:00 - Introduction 1:30 - First program, BASIC, Pascal, C 4:20 - Compilers, LLVM, CLang 37:30 - Apple - LLVM, Objective-C, Swift 45:30 - Google - Swift, Swift for TensorFlow, compilers, Colab 57:32 - TPU & TensorFlow, hardware/software co-design 1:00:30 - MLIR (Multi-Level Intermediate Representation) framework 1:02:40 - Open sourcing of TensorFlow 1:05:10 - Tesla - transition from HW1 to HW2 1:07:24 - Elon Musk and time at Tesla 1:08:45 - Working hard 1:10:40 - Dragons

wow, i wouldn't expect Chris to be such humble, down-to-earth and loveable person. I could watch this all day. Thanks Lex.

Lex is becoming a professional in introductions 👏👏👏

I wish I had a professor like Chris Lattner in all my CS courses. If Chris finds some time in the future he really should open an online course in Compilers or Language design.

01:29 first program basic, pascal, turbopascal...02:28 C/C++ 02:48 straight to the machine 03:02 C 04:45 what is even a compiler used for ? 06:57 C parser, front-end, clang 07:06 middle part, the optimizer 07:09 a late part, hardware specific 07:17 LLVM trying to standarsize these middle and last parts 15:57 C++ is a very complicated programming language, 1400 pages in the specs 16:53 gcc 17:20 clang, push forward on better user interface, compile time better, want to make new tools available 18:04 C++ and the front-end piece is complicated, syntax trees 18:46 AST, control flow graph

I can literally feel the love for code from Chris. Really good conversation on compiler and other hidden/hard subjects. Thank you Lex and Chris.

Chris Lattner has a gift for taking complex concepts and **compiling** them down to something non-geeks like me can understand. 😊 Another great interview, Lex.

A great talk on compilers by Chris. Thanks Lex for bringing this talk accessible to all. Would be interested to know if someone can define a learning path for LLVM compilers from a beginner level to advanced.

I enjoy how thorough chris is when defining the concepts he brings up. He is clearly someone who cares to have a deep understanding of the things he knows.

This is the kind of content the internet needs more of. Thanks Lex!

Lex, thanks for all the hard work needed to deliver podcasts of top-notch quality. You have helped see a glimmer into the minds of these amazing researchers and engineers. Your questions are very enjoyable, not diluted showing the level of research you have undertaken before the interview. In the Goodfellow podcast, I learnt abstract view of how some new areas like differential privacy is evolving, or challenges are currently, which I wouldn't have with the rate of current research paper publications. Maybe you can continue this series (or create a new one) into exploring various areas machine learning ? For someone who lacks direct access to good mentors in ml, podcasts like yours are heaven sent.

Lex, thank you so much for starting this podcast. These are real amazing people and their inner lives are not well documented in the collective human archive.

Amazing Lex!!! Your podcast is INCREDIBLE!!! You are truly doing a service for the world!!!!

Great convo. I wish Chris divulged more on how Tesla is approaching ML and what are the specific benefits of the vertically integrated hardware/software stack for self driving ;)

I hope you'll never stop posting podcasts as it's a fantastic resource

Bow to the Master of swift. I just started a class on mobile app dev. The professor showed us this episode... a good way to start

I can't think of a more engaging podcast to listen to. This was absolutely awesome!

Turbo Pascal with inline assembly!

I really like the demeanor of the interviewer - great job!

Good interaction. Chris was really polite 😅 and precise in his answers.

so this is the guy responsible for me landing a £85k job, honestly, learning the swift language was such a breeze having come over from C#, i was blown away with how easily understandable the syntax and compilation are , code is so bloody easy to write, no need to import separate libraries for string handling or input/output functionalities, the ternary conditional operator evaluates true/false expressions with quick returns on value, not sure if python has mutable collections but with swift even when you assign an array, a set or dictionary to a constant the collection is still mutable! one of its best features is ease in readability where a compound case can also be written over multiple lines, lets not even get into how you can define anything from a simple utility function with a single unnamed parameter to a complex function with expressive parameter names and different parameter functions. i do not see myself ever straying away from this language

Swift is a beautiful language. Great hearing Chris' design perspective

You are my role model for a teacher and instructor sir. Thank you very much.

47:35 Progressive Disclosure of Complexity. My favorite new term. I love this concept and now there is a phrase for it that I can use.

Thanks for the interview, learnt so much from it.

Wow any hour never seemed to pass so fast. Chris Lattner is my idol !

Lex, I love your videos. Yet over an hour long!! I better get college credit for this much time spent.

What a great interview. Really incredible. Thank you so much for sharing it.

I wish I could comprehend what these great minds are talking about... I have no knowledge of programming, I just watch this channel because I want to keep up wit AI and Lex is the best person to follow for that. Thanks for the very informative content.

Lattner & Keller= LEGENDS

Just amazing. Thank you so much for all these amazing interviews Lex! As a computer engineer and tech enthusiast, they really help me understand how these cutting-edge technologies were developed by these amazing people.

One of the few people who still speak fluent Assembler.

thank you for this podcast, gave me historical perspective of all things LLVM. Absolutely awesome!!!

I am thrilled to join an organization where Chris is working. Looking forward to work with Chris.. Great conversation!

Lex, absolutely excellent conversation. Watching a second time to take notes. Awesome! Thanks.

Cant get over how great this interview is!

16:14 syntax: how letters are arranged, symantics : how it behaves (C++ being complicated language) 21:15 neural network graph 24:15 trying to optimise across time 24:23 the RISC era ... 25:39 resources: running time, memory use, code size in embedded space 27:10 JAVA brought together good things like JIT compilation, garbage collection, portable code, memory safety, dynamic dispatch execution model

dude you have such amazing guests , thanks for sharing ! :)

GCC is still default on a lot of linux distros in part due to the kernel being developed with GCC, there are efforts to compile with clang but last time I checked the kernel has some very GCC specific bits in it.

Great conversation as always Lex! Much appreciated!

This is such a cozy office. What a view!

I think most people that have had the chance to code something then improve on it to reach the same outcome but in a more efficient and simple way understand the love of an elegant solution to solve a complex problem

one of the best players at Duke ever!

Thank you both.

Lex, can you get a conversation done with Jeff Dean? I think that would be wonderful. His background with neural nets back in the '90s which he parked for the here and now automation at Google, followed by his work in the past few years to pick the ML gauntlet and run at breakneck speed, make it available at scale etc. would be wonderful to learn from.

Hey Lex, it would be great if you uploaded this to Soundcloud too, youtube doesn't allow background playback on mobile. Keep awesome!

He would have been the perfect guy to ask about Temple OS

Who else was hoping for more spicy Tesla drama 🤔

Lex always looks and sounds baked af

Vastly Informative! Good Stuff!

I have done some Objective C and Swift programming and it's. nice to hear the history behind it. Now doing some C++ for microcontrollers and boy do I miss some Swift features like memory handling!

Chris Lattner is going to be a great grandfather.

Great interview! I learned so much.

Awesome interview, thanks

Computer design is so damn complicated and fascinating.. I'm a (intermediate-level) Python programmer sitting on top of god knows how many abstraction layers, and very grateful for it, but I love hearing about the depth from time to time :P

Another great interview! Thanks Lex

Incredible talk.

Thanks Lex and Chris!

Great interview.

Thanks Lex.

Hi Chris and Lex, Got my ALU accelerated for a 64 bit unit from 164 ns down to 5 ns. Continuing to develop on FPGAs not easy on Macs. Thinking of unloading my antiques.

Haha I’m using the Dragon book this semester for compiler design!

Thanks Lex!

why the introduction gives a vibe of the twilight zone series

Lex, I think the dataset is big enough for you to automatically generate the introductions.

you both have appropriate voices for radio lol

Amazing podcast !!!

Awesome interview. Thanks a lot. Any plans on interviewing Ben Goertzel?

also, android os platform code can no longer be compiled by gcc: clang allowed c++ programers to have fun and write templates with embedding level that gcc refuses to compile.

Lex, Love u man! Thanks for doing this!!

Wish I could work with guys like this. I have no degree but I have a good understanding of C/C++/ASM/Java/JS...Parallel programming/Threading etc..

What a great smile.

Duff's Device en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff%27s_device

Gracias.

On this topic of compilers, I hope Lex also gets to talk with Yacc.

What's compiler? compiler is a translator to do the job translate human language or high level computer language to language of computer can understand and run.

great question from interviewer -- 'What makes prog. language complicated?'. As soon as the most errors in most languages made because of syntax, missunderstanding mechanics of language behavior or particular commands/libraries -- but not in pure logic -- what makes them complex? People. Thats why it's simplier to solve problem in Assembly, rather than C++. How we get there? Because solving logic problems is about of abstracting logic actions, not data itself, like sum(x,y), sqrt(x) etc.. -- we don't have one method for summing cars and another for summing donkeys, and result of sum is irrelevant to enviroment, if 2 + 4 = 9 after the rain because of moist -- this function should be purified.

What a nice, lovely guy. Also a genius.

Noob question.. been listening to the podcast in order and this one I'm finding particularly difficult since I'm new to the information/ what they are talking about. Anyone know of other references and info I might find to better understand the topic and then come back to this talk?

//notes 28:33 How did JVM change the compilation pipeline?

lex + yacc = compiler

I made a note of the some points, not all, as a gist which you can see here so that it's easier to remember and look back on the details: gist.github.com/Rubix982/cbca0ddcc197bf0d32c9dfd9854c21c5 . Hope it helps.

"It's rigorous science and messy beautiful art."

Thanks

AnyChrisLattner

next step is to compile flow charts.

This channel is more like a nerd gold mine. An accurate one for that too.

lots of learn

Don't know any of these acronyms LEEROOOOOOOYYYYYYY JENNKINNNNNNNS!

When you are interviewing Jeff dean?

I'm a hardworking trust is important

1:37 umh, i recognise him. ain't he same as the person behind the company promoting RISC-V. It was named smth like Start V if i recall correct. I saw his interview regarding same with Lex himself.

Its murr from impractical jokers

The tree is moving again, Please put another background in. it is distracting.

Mans really said is an AST like a neural network. As a CS PhD.

I learned objective c like in 2 weeks , is not really that hard, Apple made that language to make it more accessible to web developers or people coming from Python, I don’t like Swift’s syntax but it was a smart move to do that

18:52 58:04

Lexxie and I wife wendy Fridman would like to give thanks for congratulations on the birth of our new babies .🎉🎉🎉🎉😂😂😂😂❤❤❤❤😢😢😢😢😊😊😊😊

Answer to Lex's question about the complication of C++ I would say it's templates, remove templates from the language and it would be drastically simpler.

I'm hardworking never change direction