This discussion brings to mind Niklaus Wirth's approach to evolving a compiler: the self-compilation performance should remain near constant even as the size of

This discussion brings to mind Niklaus Wirth's approach to evolving a compiler: the self-compilation performance should remain near constant even as the size of the code base grows. Putting aside the considerable differences between Pascal/Modula/Oberon era languages and those of today, the primary purpose of any compiler has not changed: it is to read a source language, analyze it and produce executable machine code.