This is why we need more reasonable bootstrap sets. We need simple compilers that can be written in assembly, that can bootstrap bigger compilers. Languages should be written in a subset of themselves, a subset that’s easier to translate to C. Then you ship that C version or at least a translator to C, and let people compile all the way up.

If smalltalk could be translated to C to bootstrap Squeak, so can your other favorite languages. And it’s crazy that we seem to need gcc/clang to do anything, and can’t bootstrap from assembly, ever.