Bootstrapping a compiler: why?

Question

I understand how a language can bootstrap itself, but I haven\'t been able to find much reference on why you should consider bootstrapping.

The int

Answer 1

There are two main advantages to bootstrapped language implementations: first, as you suggest, to take advantages of the high-level features of said language in the implementation. However, a less-obvious but no less important advantage is that it lets you customize and extend the language without dropping into a lower layer written in C (or Java, or whatever sits below the new language runtime).

Metaprogramming may not be useful for most day-to-day tasks, but there are times where it can save you a lot of duplicated or boilerplate code. Being able to hook into the compiler and core runtime for a language at a high level can make advanced metaprogramming tasks much easier.