>> Building GCC on Sun systems was fun - IIRC, it compiled itself three
>> times, first time using the commercial compiler that came with the OS,
>> and then two separate passes with GCC itself to optimize its own code.
> 
> Yep, the three-phase bootstrapping. I think the final step is building
> itself with itself and comparing both executables, to make sure everything
> worked.

I understand the Haskell compiler (GHC) does something similar. First, 
you obtain a copy of GHC compiled into ANSI C. Then you use that to 
compile the original Haskell source code for GHC.

The fun part, of course, as that was well as a working Haskell compiler, 
you need a working Haskell runtime engine and a set of working Haskell 
base libraries (which hook directly into the runtime and are partly 
hard-wired into the compiler)... ;-)

Apparently building GHC is... nontrivial. And poorly-documented.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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