Bootstrapping a compiler: why?

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I understand how a language can bootstrap itself, but I haven't been able to find much reference on why you should consider bootstrapping.

The intuitive answer is that the language you're writing offers utilities that are not found in the "base" language of the compiler, and the language's features are relatively well-suited for a compiler.

For instance, it would make sense to bootstrap a C++ compiler -- it could potentially be much easier to maintain the compiler when OOP is properly used, as opposed to using plain C.

On the other hand, MATLAB certainly makes matrix math a lot easier than plain C, but I can't see any apparent benefits from writing a MATLAB compiler/interpreter in MATLAB -- it seems like it would become less maintainable. A similar view could be applied to the R programming language. Or a pretty extreme example would be bootstrapping Whitespace, which is written in Haskell -- definitely a massive superset of Whitespace.

Is the only reason for bootstrapping to take advantage of the new language's features? I know there's also the "because we can" reason, but that's not what I'm looking for :)

theory bootstrapping compiler-construction
12 Answers

Compilers solve a wide variety of non-trivial problems including string manipulation, handling large data structures, and interfacing with the operating system. If your language is intended to handle those things, then writing your compiler in your language demonstrates those capabilities. Additionally, it creates an exponential effect because as your language includes more features, you have more features you can use in your compiler. If you implement any unique features that would make compiler-writing easier, you have those new tools available to implement even more features.

However, if your language is not intended to handle the same problems as compilation, then bootstrapping will only tempt you to clutter your language with features which are related to compilation but not to your target problem. Self-compilation with Matlab or SQL would be ridiculous; Matlab has no reason to include strong string manipulation functions and SQL has no reason to support code generation. The resulting language would be unnecessary and cluttered.

It's also worth noting that interpreted languages are a slightly different problem and should be treated accordingly.

user_1306400

Bootstrapping is expected from a general purpose programming language .

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