Bootstrapping the compiler

[j14159]

Basic Problem

Building previous versions of the compiler from source using Alpaca and the rebar3 plugin in their current states in order to build the current compiler from source will recurse into the past. I don't know what all the different versions of Alpaca coexisting will do to each other or if this is even a real concern. Projects that use Alpaca (one of which is Alpaca) need a way to typecheck and compile Alpaca code. Danger: optimizing Alpaca to build Alpaca, see this post.

Questions, Possibilities

How are we going to bootstrap the pieces of Alpaca that require Alpaca themselves? One idea would be to build escript-ized Alpaca releases or sets of .beam files for each release that can be used directly to bootstrap later builds. I don't see much of a way around needing the previous version to build the current one. Current issue: v0.2.8 is going to need v0.2.7 in order to build itself and v0.2.9 will need the one previous so is it turtles all the way down?

[mrkaspa]

It'll be a good idea, because you'll get type checking and new contributors can learn the language as they help