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Mono's MCS Compiles Itself On Linux

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the self-hosting-to-come dept.

thing12 writes "On Thursday Paolo Molaro announced that he had managed to build the MCS C# compiler using MCS. This is a big step forward for Mono, as it means that Mono is almost a self hosting environment."

7 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Almost but not quite... by Linux+Freak · · Score: 5, Informative

    The release does mention that MCS could be compiled, but that the resultant executable immediately crashes. Close, but still more work is needed before this is really an exciting milestone.

    Kudos to the Mono team for the work they've done so far, however.

  2. Re:Self compiling and newbie Slashdot readers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    The basic idea for mono is that you don't need windows anymore. Right now (before it compiles itself correctly) you need the ms .NET-tools. To get this thing hosted 100% on linux you need it to be able to compile itself.

  3. Re:Self compiling and newbie Slashdot readers by anpe · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a kind of proof that the compiler actually works
    Its also necessay step if you're creating your language from scratch. For more precisions try : comp.compilers

    For your abbreviation problem dry your tears and try http://www.everything2.com

  4. Re:Sound good, until... by ultraw · · Score: 4, Informative
    All you guys have really a short memory. :) The previous post on slashdot on this subject (Mono) mentioned that the mono compiler could compile itself. As the example stated in the mail (original post):


    Microsoft C# compiler generates mcs.exe
    mcs.exe compiles itself and genreates mcs2.exe
    mcs2.exe compiles itself and generates mcs3.exe


    As announced 04/07/2002, the compiler compiles on the Linux platform.

    Looks like two very, very different things to me... And a big step forward for the Mono project. Kuddos to the team.

  5. Re:One step at the time by Jabes · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those that don't understand the difference. Two months ago, the mcs was able to compile itself on Windows, using the Microsoft implementation of the framework (ie the core .net libraries).

    Now MCS is able to compile itself using the mono runtime.

    Hope this helps

  6. They did it on *Linux* by vojtech · · Score: 4, Informative

    The slashdot headline misses the important part
    of the story, the fact that they compiled C# using MCS on *Linux*, using the Linux runtime, as opposed to doing this on Windows, which was done
    about two months ago.

  7. Re:Self compiling and newbie Slashdot readers by Fnord · · Score: 4, Informative

    Speaking as a software tester that's done compiler work, one of the first tests for any compiler is to compile itself, and then use the newly compiled compiler to compile itself again. Then you look at the two binaries. If they're exactly the same the compiler passes the test.