On Mon, Jan 09, 2012 at 04:33:54PM -0800, Aayush Upadhyay wrote: > I'm a sophomore in college, and I'm a solid C programmer. I'd like to work on an open source project, and the gcc compiler seems like a great one. However, I'm not sure if work is still done on the compiler itself, or just porting it to other systems? I'm interested in the former, but I don't know much about compilers. Would it be possible for me to make meaningful contributions, and if so, how should I start?
Quite a bit of work is being done on the compiler itself, with lots of brainpower devoted to making it better and to implement the latest language standards. There is a great deal of information on gcc development on http://gcc.gnu.org/ . As this is a core piece of infrastructure for GNU/Linux and lots of other folks, standards are extremely high. However, you could start out by reading http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html and http://gcc.gnu.org/projects/beginner.html The latter lists some projects that non-experts could contribute to, though it is wise to check for duplication and relevance before starting any major efforts.
