WG211/M11Glueck

Bootstrapping compiler generators from partial evaluators by Robert Glueck

We show that bootstrapping of compiler generators from program specializers is a viable alternative to the third Futamura projection. To practically validate the technique, a novel partial evaluation-based compiler generator was designed and implemented for a recursive flowchart language.

Three-step bootstrapping was found to be faster and to produce the same compiler generator that Gomard & Jones produced two decades ago by double self-application. Compiler-generator bootstrapping has distinct properties that are not present in the classic Futamura projections, such as the ability to turn a specializer into a compiler generator in one step without self-application.