Editing Bootstrapping (section)

====Software development====
Bootstrapping can also refer to the development of successively more complex, faster programming environments. The simplest environment will be, perhaps, a very basic text editor (''e.g.'', [[ed (UNIX)|ed]]) and an [[Assembly language#Assembler|assembler]] program. Using these tools, one can write a more complex text editor, and a simple compiler for a higher-level language and so on, until one can have a [[graphical user interface|graphical]] [[integrated development environment|IDE]] and an extremely [[high-level programming language]].

Historically, bootstrapping also refers to an early technique for computer program development on new hardware. The technique described in this paragraph has been replaced by the use of a [[cross compiler]] executed by a pre-existing computer. Bootstrapping in program development began during the 1950s when each program was constructed on paper in decimal code or in binary code, bit by bit (1s and 0s), because there was no high-level computer language, no [[compiler]], no assembler, and no [[Linker (computing)|linker]]. A tiny assembler program was hand-coded for a new computer (for example the [[IBM 650]]) which converted a few instructions into binary or decimal code: A1. This simple assembler program was then rewritten in its just-defined [[assembly language]] but with extensions that would enable the use of some additional mnemonics for more complex operation codes. The enhanced assembler's source program was then assembled by its predecessor's executable (A1) into binary or decimal code to give A2, and the cycle repeated (now with those enhancements available), until the entire instruction set was coded, branch addresses were automatically calculated, and other conveniences (such as conditional assembly, macros, optimisations, etc.) established. This was how the early [[Symbolic Optimal Assembly Program]] (SOAP) was developed. Compilers, linkers, loaders, and utilities were then coded in assembly language, further continuing the bootstrapping process of developing complex software systems by using simpler software.

The term was also championed by [[Doug Engelbart]] to refer to his belief that organizations could better evolve by improving the process they use for improvement (thus obtaining a compounding effect over time). His [[SRI International|SRI]] team that developed the [[NLS (computer system)|NLS]] hypertext system applied this strategy by using the tool they had developed to improve the tool.