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1. operating system (From "to pull oneself up by one's
a computer. Normally abbreviated to "
boot".
2. compiler (From "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps")
The usual process is to write an
interpreter for a language,
L, in an existing language, M. The compiler is then written
in L and the interpreter is used to run it. This produces an
executable for compiling programs in L from the source of
the compiler in L.
This technique is often used to verify the correctness of a
compiler. It was first used in the
LISP community.
(27 November 1995)