Top all-time · #3461
Low Level Bits 🇺🇦 on Low Level Bits 🇺🇦
Personal blog · lowlevelbits.org · on HN as AlexDenisovprogrammingsystemssecurity
Low Level Bits 🇺🇦 on Low Level Bits 🇺🇦 is a personal blog at lowlevelbits.org about programming, systems and security. Since 2015, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 52 times, most often “Bitcode Demystified”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-05-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers cite this blog's bitcode post, which explains LLVM bitcode as an IR file format, when discussing Apple's App Store bitcode requirement and possible ARM or x86 binary translation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Compilers, developer tools, reverse engineering, software hardening
Most-linked posts?
- Bitcode Demystified7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2015-09-07
- Bitcode Demystified5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2017-08-02
- How to learn compilers: LLVM Edition3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-11-04
- How GNU Make is tested2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-06-12
- Debugging dyld2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-11-13
- LLVM-Based Mutation Testing System: Request for Comments2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-04-14
- Mutation testing based on LLVM (2018) [pdf]2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-04-11
- Bottom-Up CMake Introduction2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-05-24
- Components: taking a step back from Dependency Management2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-11-23
- Building an LLVM-based tool. Lessons learned2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-07-04
What Hacker News says?
bitcode is indeed a thing, its a file format for LLVM IR https://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/ It's not really a bytecode as it's not interpreted, but that's debatable.
Comment linking /bitcode-demystified/
on “App sizes are out of control”Submitted How to learn compilers: LLVM Edition as a story · 221 points
HN discussionThe comments are wildly fragmented in this thread. I agree with @torginus, the article has less and less of anything useful to people that want to get into compilers. Anyways, the "Who .. hires compiler engineer?" section is fairly vague in my opinion, so: AMD, Nvidia, Intel, Apple, Google definitely hire for compiler positions. These hire fairly 'in-open' so probably the best bets all around. Aside from this, Jane…
Comment linking /how-to-learn-compilers-llvm-edition/
on “Becoming a compiler engineer”Submitted List of scientific papers found in OpenJDK source code as a story · 198 points
HN discussionLots of suspicion because of the move to force App Store apps to have Bitcode enabled for submission. This would allow them to potentially transpile x86 apps for ARM: https://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/ Also as we've seen with iPad Pro + AWS M6G instances the performance is now there to power desktops.
Comment linking /bitcode-demystified/
on “Apple Reports Record First Quarter Results”Submitted How to learn compilers: LLVM Edition as a story · 150 points
HN discussionIn theory that’s what bitcode protects against. Today, that doesn’t save binaries not distributed through the store or ones you compiled yourself via other compiler chains. It is possible to change that. One could even imagine it as part of the loading procedure. https://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/
Comment linking /bitcode-demystified/
on “Undocumented arm64 ISA extension present on the Apple M1”Submitted How is LLVM tested? as a story · 137 points
HN discussionI have a "series" of articles from a few years ago covering FreeBSD, LLVM, and GNU Make ( https://lowlevelbits.org/categories/system-under-test/ ) and even created a separate website with a few more articles https://systemundertest.org , but stopped later.
Comment linking /categories/system-under-test/
on “How the GNU coreutils are tested”Submitted How GNU Make is tested as a story · 88 points
HN discussionI think he's refering to things like Apple's "bitcode". http://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/
Comment linking /bitcode-demystified/
on “IBM ported Go to s390x mainframes”Submitted Bitcode Demystified as a story · 45 points
HN discussion> Apple adds features like PCI-e for discrete GPU support (ok, they did in A9), and if Ax series performance starts to exceed corresponding Intel mobile parts by >50% (enough to compensate for the overhead of binary translation for legacy x86 apps). When it happens, it might not need binary translation. http://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/
Comment linking /bitcode-demystified/
on “The iPhone's new chip should worry Intel”Submitted How to Use LLVM API with Swift as a story · 44 points
HN discussionYes, you can if you use Bitcode which has been a stable format since around 2015. It is possible to distribute an application as a pure Bitcode binary that can be statically translated into the underlying hardware ISA unless the source code uses inline assembly – see https://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/ for details.
Comment linking /bitcode-demystified/
on “Graviton 3: First Impressions”Submitted Parsing Mach-O files as a story · 44 points
HN discussionIt's worth noting that there have been discussions about bitcode and ARM in the past, notably ATP 122 and Bitcode Demystified. Both are worth listening to and reading respectively if you're interested in how this stuff works on a low level: http://atp.fm/episodes/122 http://lowlevelbits.org/bitcode-demystified/
Comment linking /bitcode-demystified/
on “Apple Adds ARM Support to MacOS Sierra Kernel”Submitted Mutation testing based on LLVM (2018) [pdf] as a story · 27 points
HN discussionSEEKING WORK Location: Berlin, Germany (CET/CEST) Remote: yes Skills: LLVM, reverse-engineering, software hardening Portfolio: https://lowlevelbits.org/projects Website: https://lowlevelbits.org Email: alex@lowlevelbits.org
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking Freelancer? (June 2019)”Submitted Components: taking a step back from Dependency Management as a story · 21 points
HN discussionWe kind of have it, except it does not seem to have taken off and has been relegated to a second-class citizen at best. I am talking about LLVM Bitcode[0] – when the binary product (a executable or .o/.a files) is shipped in the LLVM IR representation and then is «AOT»'d into the final product (a final executable) that can, for instance, take advantage of the latest ISA features (armv9, Zen23, POWER18 or new RISC-V…
Comment linking /bitcode-demystified/
on “ARM or x86? ISA Doesn’t Matter”Submitted Components: taking a step back from Dependency Management as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted Contributing to Clang: NSValue and Boxed Expressions as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted Building LLVM Plugins with Bazel as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted Type Equality in LLVM as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Building an LLVM-based tool. Lessons learned as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted System Under Test: GNU Make as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted How is GNU Make tested? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bitcode Demystified as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bitcode Demystified as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
