What is bootstrapping?

Question

I keep seeing \"bootstrapping\" mentioned in discussions of application development. It seems both widespread and important, but I\'ve yet to come across even a poor explan

Answer 1

See on the Wikipedia article on bootstrapping.

There is a section and links explaining what it means in Computing. It has four different uses in the field.

Here are some quotes, but for a more in depth explanation, and alternative meanings, consult the links above.

"...is a technique by which a simple computer program activates a more complicated system of programs."

"A different use of the term bootstrapping is to use a compiler to compile itself, by first writing a small part of a compiler of a new programming language in an existing language to compile more programs of the new compiler written in the new language."