One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates developing an application that implements garbage collection (such as a virtual machine) using a first compiler and then compiling the application with a second compiler that provides support for efficient garbage collection. The system operates by developing the application using a first compiler and proxy objects, so that during execution of the application, pointers within the system stack point indirectly to data objects through proxy objects. These proxy objects are used during the garbage collection process to identify data objects that are referenced by the pointers within the system stack. Next, the system provides a second compiler that produces stack maps that identify pointers in the system stack. This allows the garbage collection process to identify objects referenced by the pointers in the system stack without using proxy objects. The application is then compiled using the second compiler, so pointers in the system stack point directly to objects instead of pointing to the objects indirectly through proxy objects. This allows the application to run faster because it eliminates the extra indirection operations caused by proxy objects. Thus, the above-described system allows programmers to develop an application using proxy objects, while concurrently developing a second compiler that provides stack maps to support garbage collection. When the second compiler is completed the application can be compiled with the second compiler.