It seems the convention about "The Bootstrap" is the set of binaries (which can build themselves) required to have the mimimum runtime and SDK to build a modern system.
The problem on elf/linux on PC, this set is just insane and disgusting.
Some are trying to clean that up: https://bootstrappable.org but I am pessimistic about it.
If I am not mistaken, they use an assembly-like byte code, to write a lisp interpreter (which seems to be order of magnitude simpler than a C compiler) and then they write a minimal C compiler with this lisp interpreter in order to build tinycc then gcc 4.7.4(c++98 ) then the last gcc you can compile with c++98 which provides c++11 then gcc 12.2.0.
The interpreter of the byte code is binary written (no assembler) specific to a machine ISA, it requires literaly a near 0 runtime.
Personally, I don't write assembly for that bootstrapable thingy: I write assembly because mainstream "high level" languages failed at pertinent syntax stability on the long run and their obscene syntax complexity kills most real-life alternative development effort right from the start: they are a planned obsolescence scam tainted with vendor lock-in. Saying otherwise would be bluntly hypocritical and would be negating reality.
That's a bit inaccurate...
We don't start with byte code or list interpreter. There is a slow lisp interpreter (without bytecode) a bit later but the start is a well commented 256-byte hex assembler (on POSIX system), or you can start with 1 sector (only about 200 bytes of code, but you need to pad it with enough zeroes and MBR signature) sized kernel/hex0 assembler and eventually we can bootstrap all the way to GCC 13
https://github.com/fosslinux/live-bootstrap/blob/master/parts.rst
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> Linux > The real way to bootstrap fasm with no prior binary
03 Aug 2023, 01:04
