Where did the first binary come from?

Question

I need to create gnu make from the source for reasons too complicated to explain here.

I noticed that to build it I need a make command, traditionally:

./configure make install 

So what if I no longer had binary code? Where did the first binary come from?

Answer 1

The first gcc file appeared from the same place.

The first make was probably created using a shell script to complete the build. After that, make will "do" itself.

This is a notable achievement in system design when the platform becomes "self-service." This is a platform that can build itself.

Things like make make and gcc gcc.c.

Many language authors will create their own language in another language (like C), and when they have moved it far enough, they will use this original boot compiler to write a new compiler in the original language. Finally, they discard the original.

On the same day, a friend worked on a debugger for OS / 2, which at that time was a multi-tasking operating system. And he will talk about the times when they will debug the debugger and find the error. That way they will debug the debugger, debugging the debugger. This is a new concept and goes to the center of computing and abstraction.

Inevitably, it all boils down to someone entering something through a hard keyboard or some other keys to load the original program. Then they used this program to do other work, and it all just grows from there.

Answer 2

Stuart Feldman, then at AT & T, wrote the source code for make during the 7th release of UNIX ™ and used manual compilation (or perhaps a shell script) until make worked well enough to use it to create it. You can find the UNIX Programmer's Guide for the 7th edition online and, in particular, the original article describing the original version of make from August 1978.

Answer 3

make is just one convenient tool. You can still call cc , ld , etc. Manually or using other scripting tools.

Answer 4

Compiling C programs is not the only way to create an executable file. The first make-executable (or, more importantly, the C compiler itself) can be, for example, a build program, or it can be manually encoded into machine code. It can also be compiled in a completely different system.

Answer 5

The essence of make is that it is a simplified way to run some commands.

To make the first make, the author had to manually act as make and run gcc or any set of tools, and not run it automatically.

Answer 6

If you are creating GNU make, look at build.sh in the source tree after running configure :

 # Shell script to build GNU Make in the absence of any `make' program. # build.sh. Generated from build.sh.in by configure.