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by charcircuit 364 days ago
Rust can selfbootstrap by compiling the rust code for the compiler.
1 comments

> Rust can selfbootstrap by compiling the rust code for the compiler.

Compiling the rust code for the compiler how? The whole point is that we don't have rustc.

>The whole point is that we don't have rustc.

This is a made up restriction.

I think one of the reasons that we sometimes think about different ways of compiler bootstrapping is that someone decided to spend their Turing Award lecture on the topic.

Ken Thompson, "Reflections on Trusting Trust". https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210

Okay, yes, if you declare the exercise pointless then you can skip it. That's not very interesting, though.