Self-hosting is a trivial matter if you can roughly map a subset of features of an existing language to your language. Write bootstrap compiler in that language and translator in parallel (as long as you have good AST/LST), run conformance tests on both.

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ModernMech 12 hours ago | parent [-]

These days with LLM bootstrapping the compiler is a lot like using YACC for the parser. You just point the LLM at your compiler spec, tell it "bootstrap this" and then it does.

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ivan_gammel 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Sort of. Although the process may not look exactly like that unless you have a really good spec.

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ModernMech 4 hours ago | parent [-]

True, I’m assuming you’ve already implemented one compiler. You point the ai to that and instruct the ai machine “bootstrap the language using this reference compiler”.

	▲	ivan_gammel 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sort of. You do not have to implement full compiler before starting building the self-hosted one. With LLM it is possible now to write the spec, and at the same time build both reference compiler and translator, validating your design early. No big upfront effort.