About the front-end & dogfood

[Bill Baxter]

About this: http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/faq.html#dogfood
"""
The front end is in C++ in order to interface to the existing gcc and 
dmd back ends. It's also meant to be easily interfaced to other existing 
back ends, which are likely written in C++.
"""

Aren't most compiler back-ends written in C, or at least come with a C 
interface?  Given that basically nothing can call C++, not even C++ code 
from another compiler, why would you seal your back end up in C++?

It's pretty obvious that front end writers are eventually going to want 
to write their front ends in their target language, since everyone knows 
the "eat your own dogfood" mantra.   So C is really the only logical 
language choice for a general-purpose back-end interface.

Assuming I'm right and there is a C interface on any back end that 
matters, there shouldn't be any problem writing the front end in D, just 
extern(C) where necessary.

Right?

--bb