11 Nov
2007
11 Nov
'07
6:07 a.m.
Hi
"...if GHC is written in Haskell, how the heck did they compile GHC in the first place?"
GHC was not the first Haskell compiler, hbc was the main compiler at some point, so I suspect they used hbc. There was also lazy ML which I suspect was used to bootstrap hbc - but I'm not sure of the details.
... and what happens, if they add a new feature, use it in the compiler itself, and then it turns out, that the implementation of the new feature was buggy?
GHC can be compiled with GHC 5.0 (or something around there). If they add a new feature, they don't use it in GHC for years and years. Thanks Neil