[jart]

Author here. Here's the best explanation I've thought of so far:

> If it's this easy, why has no one done this before? The best answer I can tell is it requires an minor ABI change, where C preprocessor macros relating to system interfaces need to be symbolic. This is barely an issue, except in cases like switch(errno){case EINVAL:...}. https://justine.lol/ape.html

It also took an act of willpower. This is a novel approach to building software that says the conventional wisdom is wrong. When I first stumbled upon the idea, I couldn't believe it was even possible, until I actually did it. Now I'm glad that I did. Actually Portable Executable has been so useful for my work. I used to work on the TensorFlow team, so I've seen the worst c/c++ build toil imaginable, and looking back at those experiences I just can't believe how I managed to get by for so long without having portable build-once binaries without interpreters.

[jes]

Have you tried to code-sign executables produced by this method?

[umanghere]

On macOS, these executables can be signed with a detached signature. Surprisingly, the embedded codesignature also works (but the signature is stored in an extended attribute on the filesystem).

[GordonS]

On Windows, Authenticode signatures rely on and use PE header - I'd also love if the author could answer this one. If it does work, I'd also like to know why it works :)

[qlk1123]

Fair enough and inspiring. However I am still wondering how to advocate changes in such a scale.

For example, Linux introduces some fixes for Y2038 problem during the past few years. I suppose the community of this C library should do something for those changes, right?

[moonchild]

Why not keep constants constant (so your switch example works), but have an extra translation step in front of the syscalls?