A Short Survey of Compiler Targets
As an amateur compiler developer, one of the decisions I struggle with is choosing the right compiler target. Unlike the 80’s when people had to target various machine architectures directly, now there are many mature options available. This is a short and very incomplete survey of some of the popular and interesting options. Machine Code / Assembly A compiler can always directly output machine code or assembly targeted for one or more architectures. A well-known example is the Tiny C Compiler. It’s known for its speed and small size, and it can compile and run C code on the fly. Another such example is Turbo Pascal. You could do this with your compiler too, but you’ll have to figure out the intricacies of the Instruction set of each architecture (ISA) you want to target, as well…
