Alan G said unto the world upon 02/07/2005 03:53: >>the original 19th c. German ;-) Naively, one thinks that to write >>anything in C, you'd have to *have* C to write in, etc. > > > You are correct. Or at least you need the subset of C needed for a > minimal compiler. > > So you figure out your minimal comiler in C. > Then you write a basic assembler program to compile that one program. > This is much easier than writing a general purpose C compiler, it > only needs to deal with a single program - the compiler.
<snip> > (*)One of the hardest malicious bugs I've seen was by a > disgruntled employee who deliberately inserted a bug into the C > source of the companies compiler. He then recompiled the compiler > (using the working compiler) to produce a faulty compiler. He then > removed his bugs in the source code so it was back to the correct > version. He then recompiled the good source with the faulty > compiler to produce a new faulty compiler. He then left the > company... > > It took a long time to figure out what was wrong and why... > > HTH, > > Alan G Hi all, good lord, but if that fellow could only have harnessed that ingeniousness for the forces of good! Thanks to Alan for the additional explanation and head-hurting tale of malice, and to both Kent and Bill for additional references. Best to all, Brian vdB _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor