[cs615asa] GCC- chicken and egg

[Tejas]

Ok makes sense. I never took that class but I'm not representative of the rest of the class for sure.

On Feb 17, 2012, at 9:54 PM, Jan Schaumann wrote:

> Tejas <tnadkarn at stevens.edu> wrote:
>> Since you need gcc installed on your system to build gcc from source,
>> when would you practically build gcc from source? Is it for specific
>> flags/configurations?
> 
> You don't need gcc to build gcc.  You need _a compiler_ to build gcc.
> You may have another compiler, including possibly an older version.
> 
> There are a number of reasons for why you might like to build a compiler
> even though you already have a compiler; these include upgrading to a
> newer version, adding a different compiler, or cross-compiling for a
> different platform/architecture.
> 
> The stage of being able to self-compile (aka as "self-hosting") is
> rather important in compiler design (see http://is.gd/r35nRt).  When you
> guys took your hopefully-still-required compilers class, didn't you
> eventually build your own compiler?
> 
> -Jan
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