[Mono-list] how to compile itself

[Kozlovsky, Oleg]

Hello guys!

I read on your site that
"MCS was able to parse itself on April 2001, MCS compiled itself for the
first time on December 28 2001. MCS became self hosting on January 3rd,
2002. 
"
Forgive me please my ignorance but I just can't comprehend how bunch of
programming code (which is text) can compile itself? As far as I understand
one needs to have executable which is collection of pointers and op codes (
primitively saying) to at least be run by operation system. But how text
files can bootstrap themselves and turn themselves into executable code I
cannot understand. Could you explain this to me please. Is there anything
that I can read about it?

Thank you very much
Take Care

Olegh