Re: Status and rationale for toplevel bootstrap (was Re: Example of debugging GCC with toplevel bootstrap)

[kenner at vlsi1 dot ultra dot nyu dot edu (Richard Kenner)]

    > Why is it so important to move them out?  It would seem to me that the
    > bootstrap issue is a good reason *not* to!

    There are very good reasons why libgcc and the crt
    stuff should be separated from the compiler:

    Those are not really parts of the compiler but libraries. They depend
    up on the target system.

No, they are both.  And that's the critical point.

It's just like the Ada rts is both a library and used by the compiler.
The way that's handled now works fine: you can both build it as part of
building the compiler and at toplevel as libada.

    Thus untangling them from the compiler itself if the first step toward
    a distant dream: It should be possible to use the same compiler to
    produce executables for different target OS-es hosted on the same
    architecture.

Won't that overly complicate the compiler?  Why isn't the solution we
use now, of having different cc1's (e.g.) in different directories an
adequate way to accomplish this?  What would putting it all into one
executable buy us that we can't do now?