Bootstrapping a simple compiler from nothing
Published in 2011, this chronicle by @yzg_new details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE 124 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 27 comments
My own experiments along these lines are in StoneKnifeForth, a self-hosted compiler for a variant of Forth: http://github.com/kragen/stoneknifeforth/ ↗ and tokthr, where I'm hoping I can get to a usable interactive interpreter in under 2K: https://github.com/kragen/tokthr ↗
I think I need to correct stoneknifeforth a bit to make it run on current Linux.
Sounds like a fun exercise for anyone who has just read "Reflections on Trusting Trust." "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself." Well what if I did totally create all the code myself?
I guess you'd still be susceptible to microcode, so you'd have to create your own CPU too. Sigh, back to the drawing board. :)
Combine this with a guide to making your own OS: http://www.jamesmolloy.co.uk/tutorial_html/index.html ↗ and you've got a very interesting project.
I have fantasized about doing this for 15 years, and after reading this, I think I have finally got the motivation to do it.
Just text, formatted for 80 cols. Anyone else really likes reading stuff in this "format"?