[Tutor] OT self-implementation?

[Brian van den Broek]

Alan G said unto the world upon 02/07/2005 03:53:
>>the original 19th c. German ;-) Naively, one thinks that to write
>>anything in C, you'd have to *have* C to write in, etc.
> 
> 
> You are correct. Or at least you need the subset of C needed for a
> minimal compiler.
> 
> So you figure out your minimal comiler in C.
> Then you write a basic assembler program to compile that one program.
> This is much easier than writing a general purpose C compiler, it
> only needs to deal with a single program - the compiler.

<snip>

> (*)One of the hardest malicious bugs I've seen was by a
> disgruntled employee who deliberately inserted a bug into the C
> source of the companies compiler. He then recompiled the compiler
> (using the working compiler) to produce a faulty compiler. He then
> removed his bugs in the source code so it was back to the correct
> version. He then recompiled the good source with the faulty
> compiler to produce a new faulty compiler. He then left the
> company...
> 
> It took a long time to figure out what was wrong and why...
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Alan G

Hi all,

good lord, but if that fellow could only have harnessed that 
ingeniousness for the forces of good!

Thanks to Alan for the additional explanation and head-hurting tale of 
malice, and to both Kent and Bill for additional references.

Best to all,

Brian vdB