Go 1.5 Is Still Working Towards Being Written In Go

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Go 1.5 Is Still Working Towards Being Written In Go

The plan for the upcoming release of Google's Go 1.5 language is to have its tool-chain be written in Go. In order to bootstrap the new Go compiler tool-chain, they'll depend on Go 1.4 to compile the new code...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTg4NDA

[GraysonPeddie]

So C is written in C and C++ is written in C++, eh? Just kidding.

[V10lator]

So C is written in C and C++ is written in C++, eh? Just kidding.

You have some truth in your joke: Read about the bootstrapping of GCC, when you compile GCC you're compiling it 3 times:
1. Build GCC with the system compiler.
2. Build GCC with the compiler from 1.
3. Build GCC with the compiler from 2.

[smitty3268]

You have some truth in your joke: Read about the bootstrapping of GCC, when you compile GCC you're compiling it 3 times:
1. Build GCC with the system compiler.
2. Build GCC with the compiler from 1.
3. Build GCC with the compiler from 2.

To clarify the reasoning behind this system:

1. You build a really simple version of GCC with they system compiler that is just good enough to build the rest of GCC - the idea is to make the requirements of the system compiler as low as possible.

2. You build the full GCC with the simple version you created in 1. The idea is to get a full-blown GCC now, with all possible features/optimizers built into it. Performance/etc. will not be optimal, however.

3. Now you build GCC a 3rd time, taking advantage of all the optimizers and so on that are now available. That way the final binary is as good as that GCC release can make it.

[curaga]

It'll be fun to read the postmortem of a new port in the future

"So I first had to port Go 1.1 to build it without Go, then use it to build Go 1.3 to build Go 1.5 with that, which was then used to build the current Go 1.9"

Mind you, GCC's C++-ization has the same effects. One platform IIRC had to go from the proprietary C compiler to modern GCC via about ten GCC versions starting from early 2.foo.

[Nobu]

As long as you have a compiler written to C spec (which ever one they used), you should be able to build GCC. I'd imagine the same goes for Go with regards to it's spec. I'm sure you could compile GCC with a compiler from the 90's, if it used the correct C version. If there are any C99-isms in there, it'd be the late 90's, though. lol

That is to say, if you already have a C compiler (doesn't even have to be GCC) you should be able to compile it. Then it'll compile itself following steps 2, 3, in smitty's post.

[curaga]

No, current gcc requires a C++ compiler, and now current Go requires a Go compiler.

[Nobu]

current Go requires a Go compiler.

That's what I meant (if you have a Go compiler which can compile Go spec ver x.x, you can compile Go), I guess my wording wasn't really clear, though.
As far as GCC, then, if you have a valid C compiler you can compile GCC from about a year or two ago no problem.