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I'm not sure I understand the value of having tools to "downgrade" something to a lower level. I compare this "downgrading" with "compiling to C" - a feature th

I'm not sure I understand the value of having tools to "downgrade" something to a lower level. I compare this "downgrading" with "compiling to C" - a feature that enables some languages to become useful on more than one platform just by riding on the back of the C language. Was it about this idea of having different layers so that one may care to really port only the lowest level when it comes to it? But then the scope you get on the lower levels is simply inferior compared to the one you get on higher level/layer in terms of optimization possibilities, partly because you are now forced to get from point A (source code) to point B (binary code) not directly but through a 3rd point - C (a lower level source code), which may hurt performance and other things. Did I misunderstood something?

nickpsecurity 11y ago
It's an exploration so I was throwing "downgrading" out there. You almost guessed it all with portability and bringing on new programmers. Both arguments for that technique. Another, esp if compiler is written in an ML, is that code used to analyze, optimize, or translate lower layers of language can be re-used in compiler for high-level. Matter of fact, I think my default was to go to ASM with plugins for other stuff. That should prevent missed opportunities in optimization.