Cross-compilation is sometimes an option, but not necessarily a good one.<p>It is usually a significantly manual process (I now have to download and install an OS which is supported by the runtime and build a cross-compiler for my target platform, which may or may not even be possible, or even work), isn&#x27;t always supported by the runtime, usually requires changes to the build procedure, often requires special patches - and at the end of all that users are still left with either having to repeat all this themselves, or trust someone else&#x27;s binary bootstrap.<p>Compared to a simple, portable, C-based bootstrap where any user can type &#x27;make&#x27; and ensure provenance directly from source.  For what gain?<p>Uninformed?  Perhaps.  I haven&#x27;t designed and written my own language, and I&#x27;m certainly no expert.  I&#x27;m just someone who gets asked to port these new languages to platforms which aren&#x27;t Linux or OSX, and it&#x27;s a lot of hard work.  I just know that if I did it write my own it would look a lot more like perl&#x2F;python&#x2F;lua than ghc or go from a build perspective.