hacking gcc - avoiding bootstrap?

[Mike Stump]

> To: brent@rcfile.org, gcc@gcc.gnu.org, mrs@windriver.com
> Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 08:24:51 -0400 (EDT)
> From: dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)

> I would have thought that it was routine to do a bootstrap to test
> any modification that is made. Certainly in the GNAT world, we do
> both a bootstrap and our full regression run for even the simplest
> change.

That's because your frontend is written in the language of the
frontend.  By compiling it, you run a testcase, selfcompile.
If mine were in C++, it might make more sense.

If I had a sparc, and I was working on the sparc.md file, a full clean
botstrap would be good, as again, it is a good testcase.

Very few changes to the C++ frontend can show a difference between a
bootstrapped compiler and a non-bootstrapped.  Also, given an
infrastructure that runs beside you that does a full bootstrap and a
full test, there is really little need...  It's not that it wasn't
done, it just that I usually didn't do them.  Better to let cron waste
his time, more efficient for me.