This self-referencing naturally occurs if you are writing a self-hosting compiler. I have read the Ken&#x27;s paper, but when I was writing my C compiler in C (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;rui314&#x2F;8cc&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;lex.c#L306" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;rui314&#x2F;8cc&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;lex.c#L306</a>), I was not aware that this was what Ken wrote in the paper. It was funny to notice that long after I wrote the code.