Cloud Parts

Compiled to machine code

A compiler turns the whole program into machine code for one operating system and CPU before it runs, so it starts fast and needs no virtual machine.

How they work

C, C++, Rust, Zig, Go and Haskell (with GHC) are compiled ahead of time. The output is an executable for one target, such as Linux on x86-64; running it elsewhere means compiling again. There is no warm-up and no interpreter, so start-up is quick, and nothing extra has to be installed on the machine that runs it.

Native doesn’t mean there’s no runtime. Go statically links its runtime, garbage collector included, into every binary, and GHC’s runtime system collects garbage too. C, C++, Rust and Zig ship no collector at all. The line also blurs from the other side: Racket CS compiles Racket to machine code through Chez Scheme, while the older Racket BC compiled to bytecode and finished the job with a JIT.

Technologies

What all programming languages have in common →
COpen sourceThe small, portable systems language from Bell Labs that Unix, most operating systems and many databases are written in, with memory you allocate and free yourself.C++Open sourceC with classes, templates and destructors: a language for writing abstractions that compile down to code as fast as hand-written C.GoOpen sourceA small, statically typed language from Google that compiles in seconds to one static binary, with goroutines, channels and a garbage collector built in.HaskellOpen sourceA purely functional, lazily evaluated language with type classes, compiled to native code by GHC.RacketOpen sourceA descendant of Scheme built for language-oriented programming: every module names its language on a `#lang` line, and new languages are just libraries.RustOpen sourceA systems language that frees memory without a garbage collector, because the compiler checks ownership and borrowing rules before the program runs.ZigOpen sourceA pre-1.0 systems language and toolchain with no hidden control flow or allocations, compile-time code in plain Zig, and a built-in C compiler that cross-compiles anywhere.

Sources

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